What Heaven Hides and Hell Declares
by cheekyrox
Summary: Castiel fell, and Heaven fell with him. It was a mistake that would not be easily set right. Not without his Grace, with so many of his brethren angered beyond reason, and his friends feeling betrayed once again. But sometimes the world has to be ending before the truth comes to light, and the Winchesters and their angel have been living a lie for far longer than they know. S9-AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Apologies to anyone who read these whilst they were in singular format and are now being shamelessly spammed. I'm an organizational freak who decided these four one-shots would be better organized into a single story. To those who haven't read these, please read and review.**

**Enjoy 8-)**

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**Part 1: For family, he said, I would give the world.**

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**Summary: Because Cas is human now, and it isn't his fragile body or his sudden powerlessness that is his undoing. It's his damn ****_mind_****. **

**Warnings: Language and all the rest of the stuff that comes with Supernatural.**

Castiel had not been thrust into the strange world of humanity wholly unprepared, despite what Dean and Sam might choose to believe. He had known something of what he aught to expect, and not all of it came from secondhand knowledge gained through observation. In that shockingly brief span of time between the Apocalypse's beginning and its end he had watched his Grace drain away to nothing too quickly for his grasping hands to snatch the rays of light fleeing his tainted presence. It had been slow, gradual, and no kinder for the fact it gave him time to adjust. It had also been instructive, and something he was grateful for now.

Because of his Fall, he knew being human made him vulnerable, slow to heal and defenseless when injured. His stay in the hospital after his all but suicidal attempt to take on five of his brethren was still a clear memory if he chose to look back that far, and with its recollection came the phantom echoes of pain and the exhaustion that had clung to his being, aggravated by the knowledge the Winchesters were once more wading into danger and he wasn't there to protect them. He had known to expect pain, and hunger also had not been entirely foreign, though the memory that had introduced him to that concept was one better left forgotten. The need for sleep had also been foreseen, alongside a myriad of small nuisances and tedious routines that had to be learnt no matter how superfluous they seemed. He had expected all of that, was even prepared for it to a certain extent, but what he had not been prepared for in any way, shape, or form was the way his own mind turned against him.

As an angel he had known guilt and regret. He had possessed memories that bespoke of madness and untold horrors. Memories he feared and hid away, trying to erase them entirely through his self-enforced penance, only to find himself adding unwittingly to the pile because no matter what choice he made it always seemed the wrong one, and some vulture was always lurking nearby ready to swoop in and collect the prize they had steered him to retrieve. Those memories had not been easy to live with, but as an angel he had been able to put them aside at need. As a human they put themselves aside, only to leap up and ensnare him when he least expected it.

He had come to the bunker because he had nowhere else to go. Exhausted, hungry, and defeated, carried only so far by the kindness of strangers he doubted he would ever be able to repay. People he did not know or have anything to offer who had nonetheless chosen to feed, clad, and transport him with nothing but genuine concern in their eyes. Somehow, in the days following his fatal mistake, he had managed to encounter only the best of humanity, and it was that stroke of good fortune that saw him standing on the other side of the threshold when Dean hauled the door open, braced and ready for the vehement rejection he knew was his due.

He had had days to consider his apology. Days in which to decide how best to explain his seemingly compulsive need to ignore what Dean said and strike out on his own despite knowing such actions only ever caused more suffering. Any and all explanations died on his tongue, however, the moment he was standing face to face with his friend, and he found himself locked instead in a silent staring match with the man.

"Dean," he managed at last, his voice steadier than he had expected it to be, but wavering regardless. "I..."

"_No_, Cas." Dean held up his hand and Cas reeled back, the rejection he had spent so much time readying himself for so cruel a blow his preparation scattered to the four winds the moment it became a reality. "Just... Just don't, okay? I can't deal with that right now, so just tell me one thing; are you planning to actually stick around this time?"

"I... " He hesitated, bewildered and thrown off track by this sudden shift against his expectations. "I... Dean, where else am I going to go?"

The Hunter shrugged, a gesture too casual to be the indifference he meant it to be. "Wherever the hell you usually run off to, I guess."

And Castiel realized then that Dean didn't know. The man still thought him an angel, what he had been the last time they met. He opened his mouth, intending to tell Dean the truth, but what came out instead was, "I'll stay."

Dean nodded slowly, asking for no more affirmation than that as he stepped back and held the door ajar long enough for Castiel to follow. The former angel did so warily, one eye appraising his once-charge, taking in the tired stoop of his shoulders, the set line of his lips, and the worried creases around his eyes. He could not peer into Dean's soul any longer, but he did not need to in order to interpret what was so readily visible.

"How is Sam?" He spoke the question to his friend's back, Dean already halfway down the stairs, Castiel traveling at a safe distance behind him.

"Recovering. Slowly," Dean offered bluntly, leaving Cas standing alone by the table as he ducked into the kitchen to retrieve a beer. The sight of the bottle reminded Castiel that he had not had anything to drink since that morning, but asking Dean for a glass of water would quickly dispel the illusion he had accidentally woven, so he ignored his parched mouth and listened instead. " But he's not dead, so I guess at least one of us achieved what we set out for."

He slammed his beer down on the table, and despite what he had said at the door Castiel could see the need for a confrontation in his eyes and the tense set of his shoulders. Dean was strung tighter than Castiel had seen him in a long time, and he knew he needed to diffuse the situation before it exploded in his face like so many other things had.

"Dean, I can explain..."

"I don't _want_ you to freakin' explain!" The explosion came, unobstructed. "I want you to _listen_. I want you to stop and think before you destroy something else. I want you to stop trying to fix every damn thing you think is your fault! Enough of this penance and retribution crap already, Cas, it's not fixing anything, because the only thing that's really broken around here is you! Shit happens, so what? We deal and move on, we don't go devoting our whole lives to making up for something that's already been taken care of!"

"You do not understand..."

"You're damn right I don't," Dean snapped back, cutting off his half-hearted attempt to evade the worst of the coming storm. "Because you never bothered to explain anything to us! We're supposed to be friends, Cas, but I don't think you even know what that means anymore."

Dean's fire had burnt bright and brief, but it was gone now, leaving something like weary resignation behind.

Hesitant, Cas asked, "Do you want me to leave?"

"No." And despite everything that was going on between them, Cas took reassurance in the solidity of that response. "No, Cas, that's never been what I wanted. I want you to stay, I told you that, but I'm starting to think it's beyond your power. Maybe angels aren't meant to be tethered or some such shit. Hell, I don't know, and I'm starting to think I don't want to."

"I never left because I wanted to."

"Right." Dean snorted. "What was it first? War? And then Crowley? And then that whole Purgatory debacle, of course. And let's not forget Naomi, queen of all control freaks. You know, for someone who believes in Free Will you tote the 'no choice' excuse a hell of a lot."

By this point, Cas was fairly certain the drink in Dean's hand was not his first. That knowledge did little to dull the sharp truth most of his accusations were, or the pain of those mistakes he had justified so ardently right up until the point they rained ruined ashes down around his ears. He was still searching for an answer that would not escalate things further when the door on the opposite side of the room swung open and a pale apparition bearing a startling resemblance to Sam Winchester limped through.

"Hey, Dean, I just..." Sam froze, his face lighting up with open surprise and honest joy. "Cas, you're here! That's great. We were..."

Cas did not register the rest of the younger Winchester's words, his attention caught by the flash of silver in Sam's hands that sent his thoughts racing to another silver instrument and... and... His breath stuttered uncomfortably in his chest and he took an unsteady step backwards, pinning his gaze to the floor as he tried to dispel the images rising, unbidden, in his mind.

"Cas?" Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dean set his drink down with a frown. "You okay?"

He glanced up at the Hunter, aware of the panic sinking cold talons into his fragile mind. He was in the bunker, he reminded his irrational self. He was safe. But then Sam moved forward, there was that flash of silver again, and reason failed him as his human mind turned on him for the first time.

_He was tied down. Tied down. Held forcefully in place whilst a face he did not know and yet _hated, loathed, feared _leant over him with a smile too twisted to be the gentle thing it was meant to be. And there was pain. Terrible pain that gripped him tight as he wept and begged._

_'Do not fear, Castiel, you'll be pure again soon.'_

No_! He fought, but the binds holding him would not be moved. His back was pressed against something cold and there were vices like hands closed around his arms and he needed to get free but he wasn't strong enough._

"Cas! Whoa, hey, you're okay. Cas!"

_He knew terror, a fear to put all others to shame, and wanted - needed - to get away and was this panic but angel and panic don't disobey don't care mine to protect take them away don't please no..._

"Cas, snap out of it!"

The sudden jolt of pain was sharp and distant at the same time, forming in a place that did not mesh with the actions unfolding around him. And then it came again a second time, accompanied by the sound of flesh striking flesh, and when he blinked he saw green eyes, not gray, swimming with honest worry rather than false sympathy.

"C'mon, buddy, look at me."

He tried, because he knew that voice and it meant safety, but the other was louder in his ears, and would not be drowned out.

_'I am truly sorry, Castiel, but this must be done.'_

His breath hitched a second time in his too-human lungs, Dean's face momentarily swimming out of view as his memories reached greedily to drag him back down. Dean shook him this time, forcefully, the motion accompanied by a sharp bark.

"Breathe, Cas!"

He was _trying_, he knew his body could not do without air, but it was so hard to focus and the bunker's dim ceiling kept shifting to blinding white and he was so, so _afraid_.

"Hey!" Dean had a hold of his face now, forcing eye contact between them, his emerald eyes burning with something besides anger. "Hey, stay with me, okay? Just focus on me. Whatever you're seeing isn't real. Just ask Sammy. He's the resident authority on these things."

Dean made it sound so simple, as if the echoes of his own terrified screams weren't still ringing in his ears, but he did his best to obey regardless. He focused on Dean's voice, not taking in the words themselves, but the simple sounds made by a speaker who had most definitely not been present in the past. With agonizing slowness his breathing returned to a rate he recognized as more normal for a member of the human race, though his heartbeat was a less obliging symptom. It was still pounding away in his chest when he opened eyes he hadn't even realized were closed only to find Dean encroaching on what he was fairly certain qualified as 'personal space'.

"You back with us?" Dean ventured cautiously, his grip on Cas' biceps bruisingly tight.

Not trusting the steadiness of his voice and disconcerted by the sudden raw, scraped feeling of his throat Castiel simply gave a brusque nod, wondering where he had gone in the first place. He had never experienced anything like that before... except for that one occasion, during Samandriel's rescue, when he had heard his brother screaming and... and best not to dwell on that right now.

Belatedly, he became aware of the fact he was on the floor, his back propped against one of the walls, though he had no recollection of how he had gotten there. Dean was crouched in front of him, holding him in place, and Sam was hovering in the background, his face twisted in worry and his hands still grasping the engraved, silver letter opener.

A letter opener? He blinked slowly, aware of the ludicrousness of his reaction, then let his eyes drift back to Dean as the older brother spoke.

"Cas, are you human?"

He flinched, but there was no hiding the fact Dean had been able to hold him in place whilst he struggled without being tossed across the room. He didn't even have to nod this time, either, because Dean read the truth in his eyes.

"Shit," he said sharply, then again with more vehemence. "_Shit_!"

Jerking upright, he began to pace back and forth, curses still falling from his lips, and Sam took the opportunity to step forward slowly, the caution in his movements suggesting he had his suspicions as to what - or whom - had set Castiel's mind on its self-destructive spree. He hadn't put down the object in his hands, and it was just a letter opener, but Cas could feel his heart rate speeding up regardless. It frightened him, to have so little control over his vessel - his body - and that fear did nothing to aid the situation.

"Cas, hey, Cas! Look, I'm going to put this down, okay?" Because Sam was quick enough to realize he was not the thing responsible for invoking such irrational fear. "Right here on the table." He held up his hands, empty and wide, as he drew near again. "I don't have anything else, see?"

Of course he didn't, because this was Sam, not Naomi, and despite what his soulless self had threatened Sam Winchester had never brought him to harm. Save for the exception of one angel blade in the back, of course. But, under the circumstances, he felt they could overlook that particular occasion.

Sam took a seat beside him, their shoulders brushing, and the proximity was comforting even though he was half certain Sam had only chosen to sit because he wasn't entirely steady on his own feet. The younger Winchester didn't say anything else, he simply sat, and Castiel counted heartbeats as he stared at the floor and waited for the pounding organ caged in his ribs to slow. He could feel Dean's eyes on him, the elder brother's tirade having been stilled by Sam's realization, and braced himself for the questions that were sure to come.

Dean crouched before them both, his eyes unreadable, but the harsh edges to his voice softened despite the words he used. "Damn it, Cas, what the hell was that?"

"I just..." He didn't have words to explain the control he had had as an angel. The certainty of knowing every corner of his own mind even when those corners were full of doubt. Now his head was full of murky waters, errant thoughts and memories lurking in every shadow, and he did not know how to steer clear of their reaching hands. This was difficult, a far greater challenge than anything else he had encountered, but he did not know how to explain that. "I can't..."

His voice broke, his throat too dry to accommodate speech and... had he been screaming? His vocal chords felt oddly abused, and he raised a hand unconsciously to rub at his throat, trying to dispel the almost painful sensation. Dean frowned at the gesture, then rose and disappeared for a few moments. Castiel tracked his footsteps, his head too heavy on his shoulders to bother turning at present, but he still jumped when Dean's hand landed on his shoulder and a glass of water floated into his line of sight.

He took it with a grateful nod, sipping at the chilled contents. He remembered a kind, sandy eyed woman with dark hair cautioning against gulping the liquid down, and after the first time he had choked and experienced the incredibly disconcerting sensation of his lungs desperately trying to eject the unwelcome flood he had deemed it wise to follow that advice.

The water helped a little, though it wasn't until he'd drained the whole glass that he realized Dean's hand was still on his shoulder, the brothers now on either side of him, and both maintaining physical contact. He did not know whether it was deliberate or not, but he found their presence grounding, so he did not mention it to either of them.

It was Sam who broke the silence, with a question both easier and harder to answer than Dean's. "What did you see, Cas? What did you think it was?"

Of course Sam would be the one to ask. He had experienced enough hallucinations and illusions to indeed be 'an authority' on the matter, but that didn't make it any easier to put his answer into words.

"Naomi..." The tightening of Dean's hand was just a little too hard to be wholly reassurance. "Naomi had... she used..."

Why was communicating so difficult all of a sudden? A human limitation? Or was his own lingering terror over what had been done to him still obstructing his ability to think clearly? He couldn't tell, it was so difficult to focus, and the hand on his shoulder was so tight he could feel bones shifting beneath its grasp.

"Dean," he admonished softly. "That is uncomfortable."

"I know." Dean was unapologetic. "But you were wandering off in your head again, and that's one ordeal I'd rather not repeat, if you don't mind."

Of course he did not mind. It hadn't exactly been the most pleasant experience of his existence either. On his other side Sam shifted slightly, and Castiel was reminded that he had yet to answer the younger Winchester's question.

"It was a probe." The words came easier if uttered quickly, spilling from his lips in quick succession. "She had..." His hands moved of their own accord, gesturing vaguely in an attempt to supplement his lack of words. "She used it for... To..."

This shouldn't be so hard, and he felt his frustration rising, mingling with remembered terror, and human emotion was so crisp and clear and twisted and strong all at once. His mind felt fractured, leeching thoughts and feelings and memories from so many different cracks that he had no control over _anything, _and this… this was simply too much to cope with on top of everything else.

"No, don't you dare!" Dean hissed in warning, though Castiel surprised himself by still having coherence enough to read that harshness' motivator as panic rather than anger. "You stay here, dammit, Cas!"

He would have liked nothing more, but his mind had other ideas, and Cas had no control anymore. His last coherent thought was the miserable realization he had disappointed Dean once again, then the dark tide washed over him, and all thought shattered.

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They were forced to sedate him, in the end, and the very fact that that worked was another blow Dean hadn't wanted to endure. It hadn't been their first choice, mostly because Dean had wanted to believe he could talk Cas out of whatever nightmare he'd fallen into. When that hadn't worked he had hoped to wait it out instead, dodging Castiel's wild attempts to defend himself against a foe not from the present. It had become clear Dean's voice and presence alone were not going to be enough when the angel - _former_ angel he reminded himself harshly - had began to tear at himself whilst babbling for someone to _'get them out, get them out_!'. At that point he hadn't had any other choice besides conceding to Sam's suggestion they employ the use of restraints, but when Cas had almost broken his wrist trying to get free sedation had been the only viable option they had left.

The former angel lay limply now, still strapped down, still twisted from his frantic attempts to escape, and still looking so condemningly, frighteningly fragile. Dean could see his chest rising and falling with each steady breath from where he was seated an arm's length from the bed, but there was still an itch beneath his fingers to take a physical hold of his friend. Something solid and material and more trustworthy than his damn eyes.

And to think that all that it had taken to trigger all this was a freakin' letter opener. If Cas was that susceptible to flipping out right now it was a miracle in and of itself that he had made it to the bunker at all. Except maybe it wasn't, because Dean knew what it was like to focus on a single goal to the exclusion of all else just to keep going, only to have everything else kick you soundly up the rear when you arrived.

A probe Cas had said.

_Fuck_.

He was winding himself up into one of those moods where he either needed to smash something or kill someone, but despite the burning, roiling anger in his stomach he stubbornly remained where he was. Cas wasn't going to wake up alone, not with his mind all over the place like it was, and Sam could bitch and moan about Dean needing sleep as much as he wanted, because Dean wasn't leaving. He wasn't going to lose another person he cared about. Not to death, and not to whatever the hell this was. He had _seen_, after all. He knew the consequences of leaving Cas alone to deal with humanity, and that wasn't going to happen. Not on his watch. Screw future him and his devil-may-care attitude to hell.

"We'll figure something out, buddy, I promise," he muttered, mostly to himself, then nearly jumped out of his skin when Sam spoke behind him.

"How's he doing?"

"Don't _do_ that!" he snapped, his voice strained as he whirled on his brother. "Freakin' knock next time, would you?"

"Sorry." Sam looked a little better this morning, at least, which was a relief. Recovery in baby steps was better than dead any day, and Dean would happily _never_ relive that first, terrifying week in the hospital. "I made breakfast. It's not as nice as yours, but..."

Sam was being sickeningly _pleasant_, which obviously meant that Dean looked like hell. Snorting at his own thoughts he took what was offered, not even bothering to see what it was before shoving it down his throat. It tasted like ash on his tongue regardless. There wasn't much that didn't lately.

Sam moved around the other side of the bed whilst Dean ate, his face set in a small, worried frown. "He should be awake by now."

Dean shrugged, despite the fact the same thought had been flitting intermittently across his mind for the past two hours. "Yeah, well, he spent half the night fighting off the boogeyman. Give the guy a break."

"Last I heard you were against doing that."

He stiffened, then set his bowl of charcoal to one side, staring his baby brother down defiantly. "So?"

"So if you're giving me whiplash with your mood changes you're going to leave Cas confused as hell."

"We get him better, _then_ I ream him out."

It was as simple as that, and Sammy could pout as much as he wanted because Dean wasn't looking. He didn't mention the fact that maybe, just maybe he was considering cutting Cas some slack for the whole angel tablet thing, because probes, man, freakin' _probes_. He could still remember the twisted crown Alfie had been wearing when they rescued him. If Naomi's toys were anything like that monstrosity, then... Well, there were some things that didn't bear thinking about.

"What if he doesn't?" Sam asked suddenly, his features pinched with something other than pain. "Get better, I mean. Last time..."

"This is different."

Sam's frown deepened. "Dean..."

"It's different, Sam."

"And if it isn't?"

Sometimes, Dean forgot stubborn was a trait they had both inherited. Sam never took long to remind him though, and they glared at one another across Cas' unconscious form, neither willing to back down. They both did so without question when the body beneath them stirred, Sam taking a step back as Dean leaned eagerly forward, speaking before Cas had even opened his eyes in the hopes of averting any undesirable reactions.

"Cas, you with me?" The former angel's brow furrowed, but his eyelids remained firmly closed. Dean, being Dean, persisted. "C'mon, buddy, nap-time is over, it's time shake a leg. Sam even made breakfast. It tastes freakin' awful but we're not going to mention that right now."

Sam's muttered 'jerk' behind him went ignored, because Cas chose that moment to blearily blink his way back into the waking world, and Dean tensed, already prepared for the worst.

"Dean," Cas said in acknowledgement. Then, "That was unpleasant."

The noise he made was halfway between a laugh and a sob as he all but fell back into his chair, rubbing at eyes that burned with weariness and something frighteningly close to relief. He watched, feeling oddly detached and just so freakin' done with all this shit, as Cas absently tested the bonds on his wrists, his expression more one of curiosity than confusion. After a moment of considering the padded leather straps he turned to Dean, the next words out of his mouth wholly unexpected, though he had the oddest feeling he should have seen this coming.

"Did I hurt you?"

He snorted. "No. I hate to tell you this, Cas, but human you doesn't pack as much of a punch as your mojofied self."

It wasn't gentled or cushioned, and he was pretty sure Sam was pulling the usual bitch-faces behind him, but Cas preferred honesty, even if he wasn't so great at returning the favor, so that was exactly what Dean was going to give him. The brief flash of relief betrayed by too expressive eyes assured him he had made the right call, and he mentally 'I-told-you-soed' Sam, sure his brother knew what he was thinking. Of course, he didn't mention the bruise on his side from where he hadn't been quite able to dodge a well-aimed knee, and Sam was surreptitiously tugging his sleeve down to make sure the scratches on his arm were hidden, so maybe honest wasn't exactly the right word for what he was being. But Cas had damn well scared him, and he was in no hurry to potentially repeat that little episode. There were enough bombshells lying about the place without adding another to the mix.

Cas' gaze had drifted to the ceiling by this point, evidently the most fascinating thing in the room if the way he was staring at it was any indication. Dean cast a glance Sam's way, hoping his brother would choose this moment to say something insightful.

"I'm going to make some more breakfast," Sam said, and practically ran from the room.

_Yeah, shitload of help you are._

Dean wasted a good moment glaring at the door before turning back to his silent companion. Cas hadn't moved, lying still and quiet despite the fact he was strapped down, and that… that didn't sit right with the older Winchester at all. He _knew_ Cas, a lot better than he had ever thought he would, and so he knew the inevitable path the former angel's thoughts would be following. Cas wouldn't have argued if Dean had said 'yes' to wanting him to leave, the very fact he had _asked_ evidence enough of his resignation on that count. He hadn't questioned the restraints either, hadn't asked to be set free even though Dean knew how much he hated being powerless in any way, and where he was right now was about as powerless as you could get.

But Cas wouldn't say a word no matter how uncomfortable he was, because if Dean was a glutton for punishment then Cas held the damn monopoly on the world supply. He had been ready to spend an eternity in Purgatory just to do 'Penance', he had thrown himself into the line of fire again and again in some half-suicidal need to make amends, and _every damn time_ things had just gone from bad to worse. So Cas punished himself, tore himself to pieces in desperate, fruitless efforts to fix something that would never truly heal, only scar over, and throughout all of it he seemed utterly oblivious to the fact he was causing the people who cared about him pain.

And Dean got it, he did. He knew what it was like to carry the world on your shoulders while you made stuff-up after stuff-up and let down every single person who had ever counted on you. He knew what it was like to look in the mirror, think 'to hell with this', and throw yourself into the line of fire with absolute, reckless abandon. But he also knew what it was to have family that wouldn't _let_ you fall down even when you had no legs to stand on. He knew what it was like to have friends who would beat sense into you if necessary, a brother who wouldn't stand for your shit, and a father-figure who threw your own words back in your face and told you to stop being such a melodramatic prick.

The hardest thing about dealing with Cas and his problems was that Cas wouldn't _let_ him help. Unless he had nowhere else to turn, unless there was not a single other option, Cas wouldn't come to him, and the fact he was a last resort had been a stinging sore for a long, long time. Maybe it was his fault, in a way, because it had been his job to teach his guardian-turned-friend the ins and outs of what being human meant, and whilst Castiel understood how important family was to Dean he seemed to struggle with any form of the concept that included himself. Dean blamed the former angel's dick brothers and sisters for that, because, really, how much of an impact could a few years of time spent with him and Sam make when stacked up against lifetimes of dealing with those pricks? Even the exceptions had been exceptionally difficult to deal with, and Dean was quite certain he had struck gold when the dream team upstairs chose to stick him with Castiel.

If it had been any of the others…

If it had been _Uriel_…

He shuddered to think where they would have been now without Cas, though he was not immune to the often disturbing consideration of where Cas would be without _them_. Still with his Garrison, still devout and loyal to a fault, without doubts, without all this guilt, and pain and… still under the thumb of twisted megalomaniacs like Naomi. Yeah, Paradise was overrated, and he might be being a selfish dick but he'd much rather have Cas here with him, human and damaged and all, then stuck up there with a bunch of emotionless control freaks who didn't appreciate any of the things that made Cas _Cas_.

So maybe things were rough between them now, and maybe that was partially his fault, because he could think of at least a hundred little things he could have done differently that wouldn't have led them this point. He'd been a fool, really, to think that pushing Cas away and shoving his friend's apologies back into the angel's face would make him care any less the next time Cas chose to disappear. He'd never been able to choose how much he cared about the people around him, not even when they were outright betraying him and his insides were doing that incredibly uncomfortable thing where they sort of tore him apart piece by piece. Cas was already family, already a brother, and he'd been that for too long now for Dean to stop caring because the whole world had nearly ended _again_.

_He'd_ been the one to break the First Seal, after all. Sam had broken the last. Cas had brought the Leviathans into the world. They were a matched set, pretty much on an even keel so far as fuck-ups went, and he wasn't any more prepared to let Cas crucify himself than he had been to let Sam do the same.

'_What's the matter?' _the angel had asked him once, what seemed a lifetime ago now. '_You don't think you deserve to be saved.'_

He hadn't, and now Cas _didn't_, and it was high time someone set him straight on that count.

The first leather manacle fell away with a soft clunk as the buckle hit the metal frame of the bed, and Castiel turned to him in unmasked confusion.

"Dean, what…?"

"We don't do breakfast in bed, pal, sorry," he answered flippantly, reaching for the second strap and ignoring the almost perturbed look creeping over his friend's face. "You want to eat you gotta haul your ass out of bed, I'm afraid."

"Dean…"

Cas looked honestly alarmed now. Dean pointedly ignored him, bodily hauling him into a sitting position and then turning away to try and find the clothes Sam had dug out at some point after last night's fiasco. It had taken Dean until Cas was well and truly under to realize that the former angel wasn't clad in his customary suit and trenchcoat fashion statement, and he had spent a good portion of the night wondering where Castiel had been for the past two weeks. Evidently he had managed to stay alive on his own. Had found clothing and sustenance enough to survive long enough to reach them, and he was itching to ask but knew now was not the time.

"Here." He dumped the clothes in Cas' unresisting arms, meeting the outright bewilderment on his friend's face with stern mockery. "I don't know how long you've been wearing those things but I'm pretty sure you're due a change. Get presentable and then join us. I'm going to make sure Sam hasn't turned breakfast into _actual_ charcoal."

He only made it two steps away before Castiel reacted.

"Dean, _wait_."

He wouldn't have, he would have kept on walking, but Castiel was on his feet now and he had a hand on Dean's shoulder, his gaze determined. Dean swiveled to face him, his expression expectant, and tried not to frown when Cas' gaze flitted back to the leather straps attached to the bed before returning to his face.

"If this happens again…"

"Then we'll deal with it," he cut in, ignoring the dissatisfied look Castiel gave him in response. "Like we dealt with it this time. We're not going to tie you to that bed twenty-four seven, Cas, and that's final. Now get dressed. I'll see you in a minute."

He didn't wait for an answer, and he certainly didn't wait for a protest, he simply walked to the door, stepped outside, and closed it firmly behind him. And if he took a moment to lean back against it and cover his eyes with his hand and just _breathe _then nobody had to know.

He was Dean Winchester, after all, and he wasn't invincible or even all that reliable, but for family? For family he could damn well try.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2: And Time Trailed Tracks of Tears**

* * *

**Summary: "It doesn't work that way, Dean." Well, too freakin bad, because he was going to ****_make _****it work that way and the world could just deal with it. Cas was going to get better, and to hell with any other option.**

**Warnings: Language, other Supernatural stuff, etc, etc…**

Dean spent most of the morning waiting for Cas to unravel again. It wasn't a lack of faith in his friend that prompted this expectation, but rather the somewhat certain knowledge that episodes like Cas had suffered the evening before were rarely a singular occurrence. Perhaps he was being overly paranoid and winding himself up over something that was never going to happen, but Dean wasn't buying the whole aura of calm Cas was projecting, and until he was certain, absolutely certain, that Cas was as okay as he could be under the circumstances and not on the verge of another breakdown he wasn't going to stop watching the former angel like a hawk.

Sam knew what he was doing. He kept sending Dean these odd little half glances in between his far from subtle efforts to keep Castiel occupied and not thinking of any of the various things that could entail a repeat performance. If Cas was aware of what they were doing he gave no sign, and Sam's distraction had the added advantage of apparently being of genuine interest to the former angel. Dean acknowledged the fact that a lot of the things hidden in this bunker-cum-batcave were pretty cool, but he was also fairly certain they didn't deserve the amount of attention both Cas and Sam giving them.

After nearly four hours of pouring through various boxes and shelves, however, Sam's reduced stamina made itself known and his brother retreated to his room to rest and recover his strength. Cas chose to remain amongst the dust and artifacts, and so Dean stayed as well. There was silence between them, but it was more companionable than uncomfortable, so Dean was disinclined to break it. Instead it was Castiel who turned to him half an hour after Sam had left them alone, his words both observation and question.

"You have not asked me what happened."

Dean shrugged, flipping through a leather-bound journal not unlike his father's that threw dust into the air with each page he turned. "It seemed best to let things lie for now."

Cas nodded slowly, taking a hold of the shelf behind him and leaning his weight on it in a familiar resting position. "But you want to know."

"Of course I want to know." He put the book back and reached for another, hoping its script would be in a language he could read so he didn't have to settle for staring at pictures like some kid in preschool. "But some things take time, and if that's what you need I'm not going to push."

Cas was silent, absorbing those words, then he spoke again, "I should have listened to you."

He wanted to take that statement and add to it with vehemence, but that wouldn't help right now and it wasn't worth the agony of another argument. "That doesn't matter anymore."

"It does matter." Cas, apparently, was not so willing to let it go. "You and Sam are the only people I have been able to trust completely since before the final seal was broken, yet I continuously dismiss what valid concerns and advice you offer."

"Yeah." He set the book down, and did not pick up another. "You kinda do." He paused, weighing the risks, then ventured a little more. "You want to tell me why?"

He turned to face his friend then, but Cas, who up until now had been staring at the side of Dean's head, chose that moment to lower his gaze.

"Cas?"

"I would tell you," the former angel replied at last, lifting his head and meeting Dean's gaze directly, head slightly tilted in a mannerism that was so very Cas. "If I knew."

"What does that mean?" he asked slowly, not certain he liked where this was going.

"It means I have no reason to offer you, Dean, or to offer myself. I do not know if I ever did, and if so then I have forgotten it."

"You mean...?"

"Many things remain... unclear still. I am uncertain whether that is due to the limitations of human recollection or a symptom of... other causes."

'Other causes', huh? That was one way to put it, he supposed, but seeing as Cas hadn't suffered a nervous breakdown saying those words he was happy to stick with them, no matter how inadequate they seemed.

"You said you should have listened," he recalled after a brief moment of awkward staring. "To what, exactly?"

"Metatron was lying," Cas responded, and Dean frowned at the unconscious way his hand moved to touch his throat. "About everything. He wanted Heaven for himself, and I helped him to achieve his goal. Every angel he cast from above fell because of me."

"You were used, Cas," he found himself answering without thought, because _no, just no_. Cas was _not_ going to do this again. To himself or to them. To Dean. "That doesn't mean you were to blame. I mean, you've Fallen too, so it's not exactly like you got off scott free."

"I did not Fall with the others..." Cas began, then stopped, his fingers resting against his throat and his eyes taking on a distant, haunted quality as his focus faded from the present.

_Not again_.

Dean was across the room in seconds, grabbing Cas by the elbow and giving the limb a sharp jerk.

"Focus," he demanded. "Whatever Metatron did isn't happening now. We're in the Bunker. We're safe. You just have to _focus_."

"I'm trying," Cas ground out, and Dean could feel him physically wavering beneath his grasp. "Why is this so _hard_?"

The words were broken and brittle, tinged with desperation and frustration and fear. This was wrong, this was all wrong, and Dean didn't know how much more he could take before something had to give. He'd spent a whole week praying to who knows what at his brother's bedside in the hospital, and now that Sam was finally getting better _this_ had to happen. He was sick of seeing people he cared about in pain when there wasn't anything he could do to help. Monsters in the real world he could handle, but monsters in the mind were a whole other kettle of fish. He didn't know how to deal with his own demons, let alone somebody else's.

Fortunately, Cas managed to haul himself free of his mental torment this time, sucking in a sharp breath as he opened his eyes and glanced at Dean with only the remnant of panic lingering in his face.

"I'm alright, Dean."

He snorted in response, and didn't let go of the former angel's arm.

"You're far from alright," he retorted. "But you're alive, and that seems to be the best anyone can hope for these days."

* * *

He would later reflect upon how downright stupid he had been in thinking that was the end of it. Cas had seemingly shaken off the brief spell and had agreed to Dean's impulsive decision to try and show the once angel how to fix a simple lunch. He had been distracted, his mind wandering and his thoughts elsewhere, and the knife had slipped in his hand and sliced across his palm. It hadn't been an issue really, he'd done worse to himself just drawing angel sigils on the wall, and it had seemed such a simple thing to hand the knife to Cas to wash whilst he found a bandage for his hand.

Cas had held the knife with Dean's blood on it for all of two seconds before hurling it across the room and throwing himself into the corner where he remained, huddled, for the next two hours, fingers knotted in his hair, mouth set in an unmoving line, eyes wide and staring, and, most alarmingly of all, tears streaming down his face. Sam had tentatively suggested sedation again and Dean had simply lost it, driving his brother into a full retreat. Cas hadn't even reacted to the shouting, locked deep somewhere inside his own mind, and those two hours might have turned into something much longer had he not lost consciousness through sheer exhaustion.

Dean waited until he was certain Cas was out for the count before retrieving Sam from the library and enlisting his brother's dubious help in returning Castiel to his berth. By the time they had the ex-angel settled Dean was too numb to bother arguing when Sam suggested he get some sleep, and for once he welcomed the nightmares, because dreams of monsters and hell were almost better than the waking world at present.

* * *

Cas was still dead to the world when Dean crawled out of bed twelve hours later. Sam had not left the room, but assured Dean he had caught naps enough in the interim to prop him up. Which basically meant his angel was broken and his brother was taking grandpa naps.

Fan-freakin-tastic.

He lingered in the room just long enough to make sure they were both still breathing before retreating to the kitchen, occupying himself with tidying up the mess that had been left there and recreating the meal that had been abandoned the day before. It wasn't helping anything besides the hunger pangs in his stomach, but it was something to do and a way to delay rejoining Sam in his vigil. He couldn't put it off forever, though, and it was only an hour later that he was dropping a laden plate in Sam's lap and throwing himself into the other chair in the room, trapped in the waiting game for what felt like the umpteenth time in the past few weeks.

Sam watched him warily for a moment, picking through his meal with an appetite that had yet to recover, then dared to break the silence.

"You don't have to stay, you know. I'm happy to hang here if you want to go massacre the gym or something."

"Tempting," he grunted in response. "But what exactly are you going to do if he wakes up and goes all fight or flight on you? You're not exactly in peak condition right now, Sammy."

Sam subsided, if grudgingly, and the room drifted back into a heavy silence. There was a pile of books stacked on the desk in the corner, but Dean couldn't muster the energy to fetch one, not when there was a good chance it would be in a language he couldn't read anyway. Instead he caught his mind drifting towards the outside world he and Sam had been deliberately ignoring up till now. Until Sam recovered whatever was happening outside was a moot point, but Dean couldn't help but wonder exactly how big of a mess they were going to have to sweep up this time. There were hundreds of angels scattered across the planet for starters, he didn't even know what had happened to Crowley after he stopped Sam from completing the ritual, Kevin was in the wind yet again, and he had no idea what Hell might be up to without its King. The whole situation had gone completely fubar, and, despite the fact they hadn't even tried yet, he was seriously beginning to question their chances of setting things straight.

"We screwed the pooch on this one, Sammy," he said aloud, staring moodily at the floor and wishing he had brought some form of alcoholic beverage with him.

"That doesn't mean we can't fix it."

He didn't know whether to be grateful or insanely irritated by Sam's undaunted optimism.

"Oh, yeah?" In the end he settled on sarcasm, waving a hand forcefully towards the bed. "And how the hell are we supposed to fix _this_?"

"Go back to bed," Sam glared at him. "You're not helping."

"It's not in my job description," Dean sniped back. "What are you reading, anyway? The original demon histories or something?"

"Angel, actually," Sam said, and Dean caught himself swiveling about despite his best efforts to act disinterested. "Unfortunately a lot of it seems pretty inaccurate, and the stuff that potentially isn't looks like it was copied down off something else; it's in Enochian."

"Oh, well, that's no problem. Just have Cas here translate it. Oh, wait..."

"Dean." There was no doubting the fact Sam was wearing a bitch-face now, though Dean was up in the air over which one. "Would you please go find something to destroy before I'm tempted to use these books as a weapon."

"Come on, Sammy," Dean retorted with a wild grin. "We both know you wouldn't hurt..." Sam's glare was truly a fearsome thing. "...the books."

"Get. _Out_." his brother said sharply, and Dean decided it was in his best interests, and the interests of the Men of Letters' precious archives, to obey.

* * *

He stayed in the gym until he was literally dripping with sweat and his lungs were threatening outright mutiny. Several hapless demon dummies were going to need replacing some time in the future, but dissecting them had been awfully cathartic, even if violence wasn't normally an approved method of dealing with... well, with anything, really. He hit the showers on his way back to the more civilized parts of the bunker, knowing Sam would complain should he present himself as he was now, and by the time he was done evening had well and truly arrived and his stomach was commencing a protest of its own alongside that of his other muscles.

He had a towel over his shoulder and hair still dripping wet when he strode past the dining room fighting off the absolutely ridiculous urge to whistle, a fight easily enough abandoned when he caught sight of the lone figure seated in what passed as a lounge in this hideout. His good mood stuttered sporadically at the sight, before dying with a near silent whimper. Regretfully abandoning the kitchen he crossed the dining room instead, taking a seat on the opposite side of the coffee table to the former angel, and trying not to stare at the angel blade resting dead center in its middle.

"Hey, Cas," he greeted softly. Then, when the other man didn't respond, "Where's Sammy?"

Not lying dead by angel blade in the other room, he sincerely hoped.

"Sleeping," Cas answered, and his fears dissolved into nothing, only to then be replaced by new ones.

"So," he prompted, wishing this didn't feel so much like walking on eggshells. "What's with the armory? Are we robbing a bank or something?"

"I killed you."

That one took a little while to digest.

"Well, no offense, Cas, but you don't seem to have done a very good job of it."

The former angel ignored him, staring at the blade as though it had personally betrayed him. Or perhaps it was a representation of all the people who had; Uriel, Anna, Michael and the rest of the goon-squad. The list went on, and Dean knew his name wasn't exempt. Cas' failures weren't exclusively his. It seemed to be more of a shared issue between the three of them.

"If this is about the whole thing in the crypt..." he began.

"It is not."

"Then I'm afraid you've lost me, Cas."

"I killed you," the ex-angel reiterated, meeting Dean's gaze with a steely one of his own. "Over and over again, in all the ways you can possibly imagine. It was training, conditioning, reprogramming. Naomi felt you were the key pin to my corruption, and she wanted you gone."

"So... she had you kill me?" He pondered that a moment. "Or fake me, anyway. And you did it?"

"When I..." Cas hesitated, aborting one method of explanation to pick up another. "When I was fighting her in the crypt she told me I had done the same thing a thousand times before. That it should not have been a problem because we had practiced it again and again until I got it right. She wanted you dead, so she made certain I would kill you."

"But you didn't." And really, he was beginning to see what a close thing it had been. First the probes and now this? What the hell was wrong with senior management upstairs? "How come?"

"Because she misjudged you," Castiel answered simply, and something in his eyes softened, that one emotion Dean could never quite place. "She believed you would fight for your own life. You didn't. You fought for your family's. For mine."

"And that was enough of a difference?"

"It made all the difference in the world, Dean."

Cas' stark honesty still took him by surprise from time to time, and he found himself locked in one of those long stares that somehow weren't awkward to any but those stuck on the outside. Eventually Cas broke eye contact, his eyes flitting back to his blade, and realization slowly bloomed in the back of Dean's mind.

"So that's why...?"

"I did not even remember doing it until you handed me that knife," Cas admitted quietly, lifting his eyes again as he continued, "I do not know the full extent of the damage Naomi inflicted on my mind, and I cannot promise you that this will not happen again. I did not remember reporting to her through all those months she had me under her control, and even once her hold was broken some memories were inaccessible. Whatever walls she constructed appear to be crumbling now, whether because Naomi is dead or I am human I do not know. And it does not matter. An angel's memory does not fade, Dean, not unless it is taken from us. There is not a single thing I do not remember with stark clarity, and the only difference between then and now is that I do not get to choose when I examine them. I have no control over this, or any reassurances to offer that it will fade given time."

"Heal," Dean corrected, earning himself a quizzical look. "_Heal_, Cas, not fade. This isn't an inconvenient problem, or some bad habit that annoys the hell out of your bunkmates. She _hurt_ you, Cas, in one of the worst ways imaginable, and it's no different then a gaping stab wound as far as I'm concerned. We take whatever time you need to recover, no matter how long that is. No debate, no argument, that's just the way it's going to be."

"I do not think that is wise," Cas answered calmly, and Dean unconsciously flinched, his mind dashing back to a much older conversation where those same words had been uttered, and remembering his own response.

'_Well, I didn't ask you for your opinion.'_

He very rarely did, as a matter of fact, just bowling straight on in and expecting Cas to follow, because Cas always _did_, even when he disagreed. Except for that one time. That one time when the whole world had gone to hell and he had had to watch his best friend turn into a creature he did not recognize, and return from that a broken, beaten, and skittish thing on which he could not keep a hold no matter how tightly he grasped. Their friendship had never recovered from that blow, not fully, no matter how hard Dean tried to get them back to where they had been.

"Okay," he said slowly. "Okay, I'll bite. _Why_ don't you think that is wise?"

Cas' response was simple, and had he been as human in his mannerisms as he was in his essence right now the words would have been accompanied by a shrug. "When have you ever known the world to wait, Dean?"

"So, we'll make it wait, then." Because, to him, it really was that cut and dried. "Hell, I'd say we've earned a break. _More_ than a break. A whole flippin' vacation, all expenses paid, in fact."

Cas, bless him, looked faintly amused. The sight was more cheering than it had any right to be.

"It doesn't work that way, Dean."

"Let's say it does," he persisted. "Let's say I _make _it work that way, and you know I can."

"Yes." The amusement was enough this time that the former angel's lips twitched ever so slightly. "I do know that."

It was faith he saw in his friend's eyes, a sense of trust he still did not and perhaps never would believe he deserved.

"So the world calls a timeout long enough for us to get our shit together," he carried on his line of thought. "And we figure out a way to patch you up, and patch Sam up too, while we're at it, and you forget whatever stupid plan you were concocting to get out of our hair or whatever the angel equivalent of that is, okay?"

That Cas did not deny the fact his thoughts had been straying to flight despite his promise to stay hurt more than he would have liked to admit. But then, this was the guy who had had a complete breakdown over a freakin' _letter opener_. That wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement as to the soundness of his judgment at present.

"I do not understand," was the answer he received, a few moments later, and he thought that must have pretty much summed up all of Castiel's time spent in the Winchester's company.

"Understand what?"

"Why you are still willing to try."

He shrugged, aiming for nonchalance, though he feared he missed his mark by a few hundred meters. "I suppose I think you're worth it."

And boy was he glad Sam hadn't been there to hear that. Though it might have been worth the inevitable teasing just to share the sight of an angel, ex or not, rendered so thoroughly speechless. Castiel opened and closed his mouth five times without uttering a single sound, and eventually abandoned the challenge of speech altogether to instead fix Dean with a look that quite plainly said, '_I have no idea what to do with that_.'

Fortunately, Dean did.

"I mean it, Cas, I do. Forget all that other crap I said to you, okay? I was angry, and you gotta admit you can be damn frustrating sometimes, not to mention an outright asshole when it suits you. But I still didn't mean most of what I said. Just ask Sam. He knows what I get like. I'm sure he's got plenty of stories stuck up his ridiculously long sleeve."

"Whether you meant it or not does not make it any less true."

"Not this again, Cas." He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, uncaring of the fact Castiel was looking right at him and could hardly miss the gesture. "Seriously, dude, you should cut yourself some slack for once. You died, _twice_, stopping the damn Apocalypse, waged war in Heaven, became the Leviathans plaything, died _again_, lost your memories, lost your mind, still managed to help save the world regardless, spent over a year in Purgatory, then got dragged off by Heaven's Area 51 for dissection. All things considered, I'd say you're doing pretty damn well."

Cas ignored yet another reference he probably didn't understand in order to argue. "You are forgetting the multiple times I have betrayed you, the loyal friends I murdered for not choosing to side with me, and the hundreds of innocents who perished at my hand."

"And you're forgetting the fact that if your family wasn't such a colossal bag of dicks you never would have been pushed that far in the first place," Dean retorted, refusing to break eye contact.

Cas was frowning at him again now. "Dean..."

"You wanna argue?" he pressed relentlessly. "You wanna tell me Crowley would ever have been an option if you hadn't been absolutely desperate? You _should_ have come to me, I _wanted_ you to, but you're not the only one to have made a deal with the devil, Cas. I know how desperate a man - or an angel - has to be to take that step."

He had thoroughly perplexed the former angel now, he could see it in his face.

"Are you trying to absolve me?"

"No." Because Cas wouldn't accept that, even if it was in Dean's power to give. "I'm trying to tell you every mistake you've made is one either Sam or I or both made first. And, hell, Cas, I really wish you hadn't decided to follow our example there, but I guess that's what happens when you choose to make people like us your role models of humanity. Seriously, wasn't there some devout doer of good works somewhere you could have emulated?"

Cas' answer was entirely level. "I did."

Dean stared at him a moment, then protested, "I am _not_ devout."

"Perhaps not," the former angel agreed. "But you do good works."

"And a fairly large number of bad ones too, but that's not the point," he added hurriedly, cutting off the argument he saw in the once angel's eyes. "The point is Sam and I started the freakin' Apocalypse, Cas, the whole planet could have burned, and that it didn't doesn't change the fact you went a hell of a lot easier on us than you're being on yourself."

"I'm an angel, Dean."

"So what? Last I heard all that title gave you was a license to be a dick. Besides you're not an angel, not anymore, so you can't differentiate." Castiel looked away, and Dean tried to resist the urge to bite through his tongue in frustration. Instead he leant forward earnestly, trying to press his point across. "I'm not asking you to forget what you did, Cas, or even to forgive yourself. I know how hard that is. _You _know I know how hard that is. All I'm asking is that you let us choose how we feel about what you did, and stop _running_, Cas. Please. Just give me some time to fix this."

He didn't like the look he received in return, and knew what was coming a moment before it did.

"Don't you _dare_ tell me I can't save everyone," he snarled, halfway to his feet before he realized what he was doing. "Not when I'm trying so damn hard."

Cas' expression was saddened, but resigned. "Not saying it doesn't make it any less true, Dean."

"Maybe not. But saying it doesn't make it any _more_ true, either. Come on, Cas." He wasn't pleading. Just asking… persuasively. "Give me a chance here, okay? Just one more chance."

The former angel sighed, slumping back in his seat slightly, though his posture was still too stiff to quite master the human gesture. "I do not understand what you want from me."

"I want you to tell me you're staying." Because he knew the danger of asking too much, and he wasn't going to push too far, too soon. Not when it could all go so easily wrong. "I want you to tell me and _mean_ it."

Cas shifted his weight forward again, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his hands hang limply, his eyes affixed on the silver blade lying between them. Dean waited, hoping for the best and bracing for the worst.

"I'll stay."

* * *

It should have been a breakthrough. It should have been a stepping-stone or a corner turned or _something_. It should have been, but all it really turned out to be was a prequel to Cas' rational mind vacating the room again. Dean didn't even know what had set him off this time, and Sam was none the wiser, leaving both of them helplessly stuck with an angel – _ex angel_ – who had apparently momentarily stepped out for a coffee break. There was no terror this time, no vicious battle to escape phantoms of the past, and no hysterical reaction to a wound that was quite honestly little more than a paper cut. No, this time Castiel simply _shut off_. Between one second and the next his eyes went from subdued, weary interest to utter blankness.

Dean had been cleaning weapons at the time, working at the kitchen table where he could keep an eye on his two charges – huh, did that make _him_ the guardian angel now? – whilst Sam showed Castiel the book he had been so enthralled by during Cas' earlier sojourn from the realm of the reasonable and sane. Dean hadn't even known anything was wrong until Sam started waving his hand in front of Cas' face without so much as inciting a blink, and even then he had spent a few blissful moments of denial convinced it was just Cas being Cas.

Then Sam had shaken the former angel, and Cas had simply crumpled, staring blankly all the while.

"Dude," Dean said, staring down into the eerily unfocussed stare. "What did you _do_?"

"_Nothing_," Sam insisted, outraged by the accusation, and went on to add a list of reasons why he was innocent and a lengthier collection of theories as to what was wrong. Dean didn't really hear him, his mind rallying about the single thought of what had been happening the last time he had seen this hollow look on his friend's face. Cas had come perilously close to killing him then, though he'd still been moving at the time, not lying absolutely still as he was now with only his breaths to betray the fact he was still alive.

"Where've you gone, buddy?" he asked, and was not overly surprised when he did not receive an answer.

That didn't stop it from hurting like a bitch, though.

* * *

Sam's recovery was a steady thing now, his strength growing with each day alongside his stamina and an appetite Dean was all too happy to feed. It could be measured, seen, even _felt_ when his brother slapped him down flat on the training mats with the most smug, triumphant grin he had seen in days. He could have drawn a chart to show Sam's progress, complete with gold stars and all the other glittery shit that went on in schools these days. For Cas, though? For Cas he'd have been drawing zigzags, not ascending lines.

Dean had given up trying to catalogue Cas' recovery halfway through the second week, mostly because it was depressing as hell. The former angel _did_ have good days. He'd even managed a three-day streak where he was present and conscious and only spaced out on them for a few minutes at a time at the most. He didn't talk much even then, but then he'd never been overly verbose, and Dean was content to let him be. Unfortunately, those good days were few and far between, and well and truly outnumbered by the bad ones. The ones where Cas would stare blankly at a wall for four hours or more, or suddenly decide the Winchester's were holding him captive or some other equally horrendous deed and treat them to a repeat performance of his opening night act. Dean could have dealt with that too, though, because he and Sam were starting to see the early signs. Starting to pick up on the little triggers even if Cas had apparently decided against sharing their significance, and they were learning to deflect, distract, and divert.

No, bad days he could take with the good, it was the _terrible_ days that made him want to knock himself out just to escape reality for a few hours.

Those were the days when Cas locked his door even though he knew Dean could pick the lock. The days when he found the corner of the room from which he could see every entrance and exit and simply _stayed_ there, huddled and miserable, looking for all the world like a frightened child. He hadn't understood, originally, what the cause of those particular days was. There were so many potential candidates, and it hadn't seemed important at the time. He had been more focused on his self-imposed task of trying to pull Castiel out of the memory, talking himself hoarse all to no avail.

And then Cas had looked at him, or through him, and said, "I'm sorry, Dean."

There had only been one occasion in their entire history together where Castiel said _those_ words to him in _that_ tone, and Dean had felt physically ill at the reminder. _This_ was Cas reliving the Leviathans. This was Cas walking through the memories of what he had done in Heaven and on Earth under their influence. Memories the angel had once confessed he feared would lead him to suicide if he was ever forced to bear witness to their aftermath.

He'd held his friend then, tried to hold him _together_, and to hell with personal space and the fact Cas _still_ didn't even know he was there, because Dean had needed the reassurance Cas was present in body if not in mind just as much as Cas himself needed the support that consistently failed to reach him. He had still been in the same position hours later when Sam came looking for them both, but his brother had taken one look at them and simply let them be. No mention of the event was made at a later date, and if Sam had seen the silent tears his brother was shedding he didn't mention those either.

* * *

"This is bullshit."

Dean slammed his glass down on the table and Cas, who had been in the middle of translating an Enochian passage for Sam, actually jumped, silver-blue eyes flitting up quickly and taking a moment too long to actually focus on the man responsible. The younger Winchester cast his brother a glare, because this had been a _good day_ so far and Dean was on the verge of tipping it over into 'bad' territory, but he also knew that this coming explosion was something of an unavoidable trainwreck. Dean had curbed his tongue and his temper for over a month, burying his frustration and his worry in order to be there for his friend, but whatever Dean tried to bottle up always boiled its way to the surface, and Sam had known this was coming, he just hadn't known _when_.

Dean was glaring at the former angel now, and Sam braced himself, ready to play referee if need be.

"You're not even trying," his older brother accused, and Sam winced.

"Dean…"

"Stay the hell out of this, Sammy!"

He recoiled slightly, taken aback by the force behind that rejection, and resigned himself to watching. Cas hadn't been lying when he mentioned that whole profound bond thing, after all, and Sam rather doubted that it was one sided.

"_You_," Dean continued. "Are _not_ trying."

Cas' lips thinned and his eyes narrowed, but he remained silent. This, of course, only enraged Dean more.

"So what is it, huh? What, _exactly_, are you trying to do? Because, I swear, if this is some screwed up form of Penance I am going to physically _knock_ some sense into you."

Cas looked slightly incredulous now, but answered regardless, "This is not a Penance, Dean."

"Then why won't you talk to me?" And that was the root of the problem, right there. The flashbacks and moments of blankness had been bad enough, but Sam was fairly certain Dean would have kept enduring those as long as he needed to in order to see Cas healed. It was Cas' _conscious_ decision to withdraw that had proved to be the final straw, because if there was one thing Sam's brother couldn't stand it was being rendered helpless. And being rendered helpless by the person he was trying to help only made it worse. "Do you not trust me?"

"Don't be ridiculous." And there was enough of the old Cas in that statement for Sam to feel a brief glimmer of relief. "Of course I trust you."

"Then stop brickwalling me, man, and let me help." At least Dean wasn't yelling anymore, opting for a tone of forceful persuasion instead. "C'mon, Cas, _talk to me_."

Sam didn't know how he knew what was coming. Maybe it was the look on Cas' face, or just the sure knowledge that nobody in this messed up family of his took the easy way out, but, either way, he _knew_, and suddenly wished he wasn't still in the room.

"I can't, Dean," Cas said. "I'm sorry."

Dean's face contorted, flashing through a series of emotions too quickly for Sam to track, before settling on the failsafe fallback; anger.

"Yeah, well, screw you too, Cas."

Cas' face betrayed the fact he knew it was hopeless, but he tried anyway. "Dean…"

"Fuck off," was his brother's eloquent response, and the final words on which he chose to exit the conversation… and the room.

Sam took a deep breath and resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands. He wondered if Dean had even noticed. Cas might be more human in multiple senses than he had been before, but he still had a tendency to speak in literal terms. And he hadn't said he _wouldn't_ talk to Dean, he'd said he _couldn't_. Sam knew what that was like, and Dean should too, because, heck, how long had it taken Sam to get even the slightest confession from him about what had gone down in Hell? He hadn't resented Dean that delay, because he had known it had to be hard, and he had realized, eventually, after Dean lied and then turned down his offers of help, that his brother wasn't _ready_ to talk yet. But, then again, Dean wasn't exactly prone to rational thought when someone he cared about was in trouble.

Smothering the intensely acute urge to sigh he turned to look at the ex-angel, not entirely surprise by the hurt and quite frankly lost expression currently adorning Cas' face.

"Hey," he said, because just because Dean had chosen a really bad time to be a jerk didn't mean he was going to let this good day spiral away into a bad. Cas' eyes shifted from the empty doorway to his face, and there was a silent apology written there. "It's alright. I get it, okay? And Dean will too, once he actually stops and thinks about it. Just, give him some time, yeah? Give _yourself_ some time."

Cas nodded silently, hesitantly, then went back to the abandoned pages before him. Sam tried to return his focus to his own book, but in reality he spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for Dean's words to have an ill effect.

He refused to see it as anything but a positive sign that they didn't.

* * *

Dean didn't apologize. Not with words, anyway, but Sam knew what it meant – and he hoped Cas knew too - when Dean loped into the room in the middle of another study session and dropped a bowl of popcorn into Cas' lap as he seated himself on the couch beside his friend and ignored the angel's flinching reaction to the sudden proximity. His brother wasn't good with verbal communication about sensitive issues, and that was probably an understatement of mammoth proportions, but he had a handle on the whole actions-speak-louder than words thing. Of course, that didn't mean Cas did, but the fact Dean wasn't pounding the former angel as threatened had to be a fairly obvious method of communication, he thought.

Dean took one look at the multitude of books set on the table, then announced without preamble, "We need a T.V."

Cas frowned at the same pile of manuscripts. "I fail to see how a television would aid in this process."

"You're not serious, are you?" Dean stared at the former angel for a few seconds, then turned to Sam. "He's serious, isn't he?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Right, Sammy, you can deal with that one. I'm going to go rustle us up some dinner."

"You mean we're not going to just eat popcorn?" When Dean had appeared with that, he had been almost certain it _was_ dinner.

"It was the only thing left in the cupboards," his brother retorted. "Come on, Sam, my taste in food isn't _that_ bad."

"That's debatable," he muttered, just loud enough for Dean to hear, and his brother called back from the other room.

"Hey, the cook chooses what is and isn't food, everyone else shuts their cakehole." Sam grinned at Castiel, who looked hopelessly confused again, then smoothed his expression into one of innocence as Dean reappeared in the doorway, coat and car keys in hand. "Try not to trash the place while I'm out," he ordered sternly, bolting before Sam could get another word in.

"Ten bucks says he comes back with a pie," he said cheerfully, and tried not to be too disappointed when Castiel didn't reply.

Time, he reminded himself calmly. It was just a matter of time.

* * *

Time passed, and Cas both did and did not get better.

The daylong walks down memory lane grew fewer and further apart before tapering off altogether, and fuck if Dean wasn't absolutely freakin' ecstatic to see them go. There were still those little moments of nothingness, where Cas simply _went away_ to who knew where, but they rarely lasted more than a few minutes, and the more violent reactions that were just pure _reactions _stopped being a regular occurrence and became something of a largely averted eventuality. There was still the odd occasion where some obscure trigger would send him out of his mind, but, for the most part, either Sam or Dean could bring him back before things got out of control.

It should have been good news, two months in and they almost had Cas back on an even keel, save for the fact the former angel was still refusing to talk about any of it. Or anything at all, lately. Any attempt at conversation had been shaved down to monosyllabic responses when Cas responded at all, and Dean was starting to wonder if he should ask the once angel to stay again, because even if his friend hadn't departed in the physical sense he was doing a hell of a good job of mimicking the gesture mentally.

"I think we should start hunting again," Sam said, and Dean stared at his brother as if he'd just recited the Bible in Enochian. "I'm serious, Dean."

"I know you are," he answered shortly. "I was just trying to figure out when, exactly, you lost your mind. I mean, what are you suggesting, Sam? That we just drag Mr. Damaged and Not All There along with us?"

"No." And the fact Sam had a ready answer for that question betrayed the fact he had been thinking about this for quite some time. "Cas can stay here with the books and help with research and the like. That way he can still feel useful."

"Right." Dean nodded slowly. "And what happens when he loses it and we're not here, Sam?" He left out the '_what happens when he leaves_?', no matter the fact it was a reoccurring theme in his head.

"He'll be okay," Sam asserted, and what gave him the right to sound so damn _certain_? "He's practically better, Dean, and just staying here isn't going to fix what issues are left. Maybe getting him back in the game will help. Maybe _us_ getting back in the game will help. He knows I've been healed up for weeks now, which means he knows the only reason we aren't hunting is because of him. You know what he's like, Dean."

Dean _did_ know, a hell of a lot more than Sam did, and he couldn't believe he was agreeing to this but… "Okay, fine, what did you have in mind?"

"Just a haunting," Sam answered quickly, sliding the laptop across the table between them. "Simple and close. We shouldn't be gone for more than a day or two."

Dean really should have known better than to say yes.

* * *

"If you _ever_ say the word _simple_ in relation to a hunt again, I am going to _freaking kill you_."

It was hard to tell if Sam was affected by the threat or not, because Dean was absolutely focused on putting one foot in front of the other and blinking away the blood that had sealed his left eye shut. His right hand was plastered to his side, trying to prevent further loss of fairly important bodily fluids, whilst his left was slung across Sam's ridiculously tall shoulders as his brother supported the majority of his weight down the stairs. It wasn't until they actually reached the bottom and Dean found himself blearily staring into horrified, silver-blue eyes that he considered the fact maybe coming back to the bunker for medical treatment hadn't been the best idea in the history of ideas.

He watched, waiting for the inevitable, as Castiel raised a hand on instinct, freezing halfway when he realized how positively futile the gesture was. The hand dropped limply to his side, and Dean inwardly wondered how Sam was going to deal with both him and a potentially insane former angel, but then Cas' gaze shifted to Sam, his voice unbelievably steady.

"What do you need?"

His baby brother didn't waste any time on questioning that steadiness, getting Cas to help him manhandle Dean onto the couch, and then sending him on various errands to fetch the materials needed to patch the older Winchester back together. Dean was so taken aback by this turn of events it didn't even occur to him to argue against any of the things he would normally have protested, and by the time he was stitched up, drugged, and comfortably cocooned in a ridiculously warm blanket it was too late. Vaguely, he was aware of the fact that Castiel was seated beside him, leaning forward with his hands clasped in a manner that was so distinctly Cas it was almost painful to see it.

Sam was snoring on the other couch, worn out, so Dean felt safe in extending a disproportionately heavy hand to pat Cas on the arm as he slurred, "S'good to have you back, buddy."

Cas took his clumsily flailing limb and placed it back at his side.

"Go to sleep, Dean."

And that, he decided, sounded like a damned good idea.

* * *

Things didn't magically get better from there on in, but that was okay, because Dean hadn't really expectedthem to. Sam set Cas to work as their official researcher, and simply having something to do, even if it didn't make him any more verbose, worked subtle changes in the former angel's demeanor. Dean happily bid the slightly defeated slope to his friend's shoulders goodbye, and if Cas still wasn't all the way back to being the Cas he remembered then that was okay too, because now he _knew_ that Cas was still in there somewhere, and he didn't care whether it took what was left of their mortal lives, he was going to get his friend back.

They didn't concern themselves with the fallen angels or whatever else might be going on in the big leagues just yet. They stuck to smaller hunts, to what had once been their lives, and just _remembered _what this had all been about in the first place. They were helping people again, without the complications of all the various, manipulating bastards or the guilt or the shitpile that seemed to grow bigger every time they turned around. It was simple, clean cut, and it was great. Dean suspected he had needed this just as much as Sam and Cas had, and for once in his life he was content to simply let the elephant in the room be. There would be time to deal with that later. For now, simple was good, and he was sticking with it.

And then Sam found them a witch, and the witch led them straight to Crowley.

It figured, he thought, because simple never lasted.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3: As the Truth Sounded on a Liar's Tongue**

* * *

**Summary :Crowley didn't tell them the truth out of the goodness of his heart. It was revenge, pure and simple, meant to hurt, and damn it if it hadn't worked. Dean thought it a shame so many of the people he would like to personally tear to shreds were already dead, and he's pretty sure the witch they were currently hunting would agree.**

**WARNINGS: Language, potential OOCness, and definite AUness.**

It was Crowley who told them the truth, and wasn't that just the most messed up thing in recent history? Really recent history. Like the past five minutes history. But, really, Crowley and truth did not belong in the same sentence at all. Though, considering how painful this particular truth was, perhaps it did fit with his sly, manipulative, general asshole demeanor. And hell if Dean wasn't tempted to just gank him then and there simply for being the messenger. But Sam wasn't going to let that happen, he could see that in the way his brother's face had shifted to wary curiosity, with a good deal of foreboding on the side.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, and Dean wanted to tell him to shut the hell up, because this...? Yeah, he didn't know what this was, but he didn't like it.

"What do I mean?" Being half cured had apparently done very little for Crowley's sparkling personality, as proven by the way he parroted Sam's question back at the two brothers in a tone that clearly implied he thought they were both morons. Dean didn't know why he was implying anything, because whatever he though about Dean and Sam and their intelligence or lack thereof had already been uttered aloud at some point or another. "Exactly what I said, you half-witted ingrates. You got the faulty model, and there aren't any refunds where that came from."

Forget ganking, he'd much rather pound the living daylights out of the bastard, see him try to paste that smug smile on when he only had half a face. Hands clenched tightly at his sides, he hissed words through his teeth.

"_What_ do you _mean_?"

"I guess it's safe to say you guys are more brawn than brain." Crowley rolled his eyes. "Come on, you pathetic muppets! Apocalypse averted and sweet little Cassie running home to spread goodwill and cheer among the mooks? Certain members of senior management weren't going to buy into that little fairytale, obviously."

"We know about Raphael..." Sam began.

"And where," Crowley answered sweetly, "do you think dear old Naomi was in all this?"

_No. _Dean's stomach dropped like a leaden weight, twisting mercilessly as his heartbeat grew suddenly loud in his ears. _Hell, no!_

"You're lying," he growled furiously, because that was so much easier than thinking. "We would have noticed."

"Would you?" Crowley shrugged, hands dug deep into his overcoat pockets, triumph writ in his eyes. "Were you even looking? We were worried, you know. Worried that you might notice and give the game away, but you were so preoccupied with little Sammy here poor Cas never stood a chance. Turns out stopping your precious guardian angel from getting all of gigantor out of the Cage worked like a charm."

There were no words for what Dean was feeling in that moment, a whirling torrent of so many emotions threatening to engulf him entirely as he adamantly clung to his denial.

"We _would_ have noticed," he insisted, desperate.

"Broke his little mind, she did." Crowley smiled, a baring of teeth, the dying throes of a feral animal brought to heel. "Tore up the little pieces and let them drift free. Couldn't leave him whole, you know, little twerp kept fighting back. Of course, that whole plan went to hell – or Purgatory, if you prefer – when all those souls cast Naomi out and all her Band-Aids went with her. Left a right mess to clean up, but hey, a little collateral damage never hurt anyone."

"You _bastard_..." His whole body was shaking with rage now, but Crowley simply raised an eyebrow incredulously.

"_I'm_ the bastard? Really, Dean? Because, in case you didn't notice, I wasn't the one who let Naomi run rampant in my best friend's twisted little head because I was so wound up in my own problems I didn't even notice it was happening. It's not good karma, is it, hanging around you two?"

If Crowley hadn't still possessed the power to teleport Dean would have killed him then and there and to hell with Sam and his damned ideas of compassion. Naomi was already gone, after all, and he needed to kill something.

The witch they were hunting never stood a chance.

* * *

"We should tell him."

The radio dial was taunting him, sitting there within easy reach with the perfect means of drowning Sammy out, but Dean knew, in that reluctant part of himself that still spoke sense, that that wouldn't solve the problem. When Sam got his teeth into an idea like he had now nothing short of the Apocalypse would dissuade him. Though, come to think of it, the Apocalypse hadn't really worked either.

"He thinks it was his fault, Dean."

Sam said it earnestly, as if Dean didn't know that whatever mind rape Naomi had committed had led all the blame to land squarely on Cas' shoulders. There wasn't anything the former angel _didn't_ blame himself for, and Dean caught his thoughts flashing back to Purgatory, and that moment where Cas had told him his mind was no longer fragmented. If what Crowley had said was true, though, and damn instincts for agreeing with that lying bastard, then how could Castiel possibly judge if he was right in the head? He probably didn't even know what right in the head felt like.

Beside him, Sam was still talking. "He deserves to know, Dean."

"Oh, yeah?" His voice was scathing, sardonic and bitter. "And what are you going to tell him, genius? 'Oh, hey, Cas, just thought you should know that all that massacring you did in Heaven and on Earth wasn't all on you. It's just that Naomi was a bitch that thought screwing with your head was the best past-time yet and she accidentally sort of broke your mind. But, hey, at least you know it wasn't your fault now right?' How well do you think that'll go over, Sam, really? How would _you_ feel?"

"We don't have to tell him like _that_," Sam objected, shrinking slightly in his seat, though there was still too much of a stubborn lilt to his voice for the movement to be submission. Sam just did that sometimes now, he _huddled_, and Dean had no idea why.

"And what about all the shit that's happened since?" he asked, calmer now, at least outwardly, because _damn it, Cas_. "All that penance and absolvement crap and the rest of it. He broke Heaven trying to fix this thing, Sam, and you want to tell him it wasn't his fault in the first place?"

"Heaven wasn't his fault, either," Sam said pointedly, purposefully oblivious to the glaringly obvious truth that Castiel didn't see it that way, the angel utterly blind to the fact Naomi seemed to have robbed him of that important facet known as reason. "And... Hell, I don't know, Dean. Maybe this will help him heal."

And therein lay the problem, didn't it? Because Cas _wasn't_ healing, despite Dean's desire to believe otherwise and Cas' contentedness with letting him do so. He was _better_, yes, but healing? Healing was another matter entirely, and it had less to do with him being human and so much more to do with the guilt the size of the Chrysler building threatening to devour him whole. Dean didn't know what to do anymore, and he had started to realize that having his friend present in body but distant in mind was a hell of a lot harder than what he had had before, when Cas had come and gone as he pleased. He wished he could turn back time, to when the world was ending and Castiel had beaten him six ways to Sunday for giving up. Or when Heaven was hellbent on tearing itself apart and he had accepted 'I am at war' as a reason for Cas being so... not Cas. Or Purgatory, when he should have dragged Cas out kicking and screaming whether he wanted to be saved or not. Cas hadn't cared much for Dean's opinion on the matter when he hauled him from Hell, so why hadn't he returned the favor?

But Cas had already shown him that the past could not be altered, and wishes weren't fishes or however the heck that saying went. Cas was broken, and if what Crowley had said was true - again, denial was the preferable path - then he had been broken for a long time. And what kind of a shitty reward was that, anyway? Stop the Apocalypse and get screwed over by big sister. Fate really was a bitch. All three of her.

"We should have noticed, Sam." He hadn't meant to say that aloud, but it was lurking too close to the surface to go ignored, and wasn't there a single person on this damned planet that he could care about and _not_ let down? "After all the bullshit we've been through together and we didn't even…"

"We didn't know," Sam offered quietly, subduedly, and Dean snorted, because what kind of an excuse was that anyway?

They didn't _know_. More like they didn't care to find out. Except _that_ wasn't true either, because Dean had cared, he'd just been up to his eyeballs in Sam and all the other crap going on that he hadn't had room for Cas too. Not when Cas was supposed to be dependable, the one person he could _not_ worry about most of the time because, no matter what happened, Cas always came back in one piece. The angel was someone who offered help far more often than he asked for it, and Dean had _needed_ him to be alright because so many other things in his life weren't. It had been hard, acknowledging that Cas wasn't alright, and harder still to rectify the issue because any conversation with the angel was stunted at best. Cas always disappeared the moment Dean started getting somewhere, and he supposed that made sense now what with Naomi having been involved and all and shit if that didn't make him feel even worse.

He slammed his foot on the brake pedal so hard he almost ejected Sam through the windscreen, his brother's vehement curses following him as he vaulted out of the car and tore his phone from his pocket, ignoring the fact he was parked in the middle of the road in the middle of the night. Sam didn't follow him, which meant he must have had some understanding of the wild rollercoaster ride Dean's thoughts were careening along. Which was just as well, because Dean had no idea what he was doing.

The phone rang three times before Castiel answered. It always rang three times. Just long enough for the former angel to hold it in his hands and debate whether or not he wanted to answer it. He hadn't failed to yet, which meant the sense of relief that flooded through Dean at the familiar pronunciation of his name was entirely irrational. Cas, evidently, was having one of his better days, because when his monosyllabic greeting did not garner a response – Dean's tongue having tied itself uncomfortably in his mouth – he ventured a few more.

"Is everything alright?"

Or perhaps it was just that, even after everything, worry for the Winchesters seemed to be about the only thing that breathed life into his friend these days. That was why Sam had started pulling Cas into helping him with his research before each case, hinting that Cas' extensive knowledge of the supernatural world would guard the wellbeing of both the brothers far better than what they found in the books _they_ could read or on the internet. Dean had never been more grateful for the fact his brother was a complete nerd, and had gone so far as to tell Sam so. Sam, for his part, hadn't exactly been gushing with gratitude.

"Yeah, Cas, we're all good."

Or he would be, if the stupid lump choking him would just move already. He would have preferred to have Cas right in front of him, but lately it was easier to talk over the phone, where he could imagine the little micro expressions that made Cas _Cas_ without seeing the blankness that had hidden them all from sight.

"But… you called me."

Cas sounded puzzled. It was an emotion, at least, and better than nothing.

"I did."

He could imagine the frown he would be receiving if they were standing face to face, and it didn't seem quite so far fetched to hope that it was actually _there_ this time, and not just drawn from his memories.

"It's the middle of the night, Dean."

He was glad Sam hadn't gotten out of the car, because he was fairly certain the smile on his face was slightly crazed by this point.

"Yes, it is."

There was a long silence, and Dean held his breath, waiting for Cas to either withdraw from engaging with other human beings as had become habit lately, or give him a chance to damn well _fix _this stupid, broken thing.

A slight huff of breath echoed down the phone line, and then, "Is there a _reason_ you are calling me in the middle of the night even though everything is 'all good'?"

His exhale was pure relief. _Thank Heaven. Or… whatever_.

"Yeah, we uh…" He was a coward for trying to do this now. For not facing Cas and admitting to a failure the former angel was too damn dense to even realize existed, let alone acknowledge. But cowardice suited him for the moment, and he sought only to test the waters. "We saw Crowley."

He flinched at the sharp inhale that statement invoked, because if that name was a trigger… and when the hell had he started to worry about triggers anyway?

"Crowley," Cas repeated flatly, and Dean thanked whatever power was responsible for there being no dial tone ringing in his ear. "What did he want?"

He chuckled darkly, leaning against the car and throwing his head back to stare up at the starless night. It was overcast, probably going to rain soon, and wasn't that the story of his life painted in bold right there?

"Just to talk. You believe that?"

Cas was silent a moment too long.

"Yes."

Dean winced, and smothered a groan, because really, he should have seen that one coming. 'Just talking' with Crowley hadn't ended well for Cas. He doubted it ended well for anyone.

"He wasn't proposing a deal or anything like that," he said quickly, still deathly afraid Castiel would use hanging up just as effectively as he had once utilized his wings. "He just wanted to talk. Actually talk. Granted, it wasn't about anything Sam or I wanted to talk about, but, hey. It's an improvement, right?"

"You are upset."

Why did Cas make questions sound like statements?

More importantly, when had Dean learned to tell the difference?

"A little. There were some hard truths in there, man."

"_Crowley_ was telling the truth?"

It was times like this that gave Dean faith the old Cas was still in there somewhere. Just… buried under a ton of shit bricks he didn't know how to move.

"Unbelievable, ain't it?" he quipped.

Cas still sounded disbelieving. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Cas, I'm sure." His voice dropped without him intending it to, becoming something softer and more sincere. "I… I need to talk to you, okay? But not over the phone. Sam and I are heading home now. Or we will be. In a moment. I just wanted to let you know where we were at."

"By calling me… in the middle of the night."

How was it that Cas could be so socially inept, yet suddenly aware that midnight phone calls weren't the norm? Freakin' angels. Or ex-angels. Whatever.

"Yes, Cas, by calling you in the middle of the night," he parroted back with a thin layer of sarcasm. "Why? Did I interrupt your beauty sleep or something?"

"I wasn't sleeping."

Of course not. Because interaction wasn't the only thing Castiel had been avoiding lately.

"Well, do," he prompted. "Or have a midnight snack and watch TV, whatever. You're not sitting up all night with Sam's collection of old and musty. That's an order."

"Dean…"

He hung up, briefly considered calling back to apologize, then simply pocketed his phone. It was a rare thing these days to be able to decide when a conversation with Cas ended, and he wasn't going to waste the opportunity. Maybe being cut off before he said what he wanted to say would put Cas in a better mood for talking when they got back to bunker.

_Yeah, and pigs might fly. _He opened the Impala's door, then froze, head cocked to the side in thought. _Then again, knowing my luck, they probably do_.

"You tell him?" Sam asked tentatively as he reseated himself behind the wheel and pulled away from their impromptu parking spot.

"Over the phone, Sammy?" He cast his brother a derogatory glance. "What do you take me for?"

"Well, then…?" Sam shrugged, seeking an explanation for Dean's inexplicable departure from what passed for normal around here.

"I just wanted to hear his voice, okay?" And _dammit_ if that wasn't the girliest thing he had said in the last year, at _least_. Sam clearly knew it as well, judging by the grin on his face, and Dean turned to his brother with murder in his eyes. "One word, Sammy, _one word_."

Sam, wisely obeying the cardinal rule of _do not piss off the driver_, didn't make a sound.

But he didn't stop grinning either.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 4: On the Road to Redemption**

* * *

**Summary: He remembered each terrible, ****_wrong_**** choice. He remembered sticking by his decisions because he was doing this to ****_protect_**** the Winchesters and why couldn't they understand that? He remembered torturing an innocent woman, breaking Sam's mind, and killing Balthazar. He remembered when it had all gone wrong, the blood he had spilt and the scorched wings that had covered green pastures. He ****_remembered_****, and it was a curse not being able to forget what he had done, except Dean was saying… "It wasn't you, Cas."**

**Warnings: Language, other Supernatural stuff, etc, etc…**

The second thing that struck Castiel about the state of humanity was how utterly _lonely_ it could be. As an angel, even as a Fallen angel, he had been able to hear the constant stream of conversation between his brethren. It had always been there, throughout the entirety of his life, even when he hadn't _known_ he was an angel, even when he had turned off the 'angel radio', as the Winchester's had long ago dubbed it, but now it was simply gone. When Dean and Sam were present the silence was bearable, but when they left, and the bunker was devoid of all life but himself… The emptiness was all pervading then, invasive and unwelcome, all the more so because when it was present the ghosts were not so easy to ignore.

Castiel knew it wasn't normal for reality to blur and mingle as often as it did right in front of his eyes. He could tell the difference now, at least, between what was truly present and what was just a mirage overlaying whichever room he was currently occupying. It was like staring at two different paintings at the same time, one eye on each, until they both twisted into a single image that left a constant, dull throb pounding between his temples. He could be discussing a case with Sam and Dean whilst Raphael raged in the background, sometimes even the foreground, moving through the boys like a phantom. The brothers could be arguing at the table over dinner whilst Naomi shouted at him to follow orders, and whilst he knew one was of the past and one was of the present it was as though his mind could not separate the two, leaving him trapped in a world filled with ghostly memories.

Neither Dean nor Sam were aware of this lingering symptom of his 'injuries', as Dean had termed them, and Castiel had no intention of enlightening them. The brothers were only hunting again because they thought he was better, he was not about to inform them otherwise, and he certainly wasn't planning to tell them it was that much harder to tell memory from reality when they weren't there. He could manage, for the most part, despite the often outright debilitating headaches that came with his efforts to focus on the present, another thing that eased significantly whenever the Winchesters were there to provide something to focus _on_, but the longer they were away the harder it became to differentiate, and the worse the pain of trying to make his mind cooperate got.

He had not, despite Dean's assumption, been researching when the elder Winchester rang. It was somewhat difficult to focus on text when one's eyes insisted there was double everything on the page, so instead Castiel had simply been lying on the couch, staring listlessly at the ceiling as he listened to the screams of his dying brethren and knew if he turned his head he would be able to see the TV Dean had acquired with his own horrific deeds splayed over the top like some sickening horror film. Better to focus on the ceiling fan, despite the fact he knew there should only be one where he saw two, and hope the noise inside his head didn't deafen him.

The clear, jarring bell of the cellphone in his pocket sounded like salvation in his ears, and he scrambled to answer it.

"Dean." The clamor in the room reduced to a distant murmur, but there was no answer on the other end, and Castiel frowned up at the single, circling fan as worry dug its deep claws into his chest. "Is everything alright?"

A moment of silence, an unsteady breath, then Dean's response came, words betrayed by the unsteady voice that uttered them. "Yeah, Cas, we're all good."

Humans, he had learnt, were illogical at the best of times, the Winchesters more so than most. "But... you called me."

Dean sounded almost triumphant as he replied, "I did."

Or maybe he was smug, deliberately stringing Cas along without really answering just because he could. A glance at the clock flashing on the mantelpiece assured him his internal indicator was still accurate, and he frowned slightly.

"It's the middle of the night, Dean."

"Yes," Dean answered, sounding absurdly pleased with himself. "It is."

There was no doubt in his mind now that his friend was being deliberately obtuse, perhaps in an effort to keep him 'talking', something he had learnt both Winchesters deemed relatively important in the scheme of human existence. The memories playing out around him had been reduced to a mere whisper now, so he could not say that he minded, exactly, despite the annoyed sigh that escaped him.

"Is there a _reason_ you are calling me in the middle of the night even though everything is 'all good'?"

On the other end of the phone Dean let out a breath in what could only be relief, though Castiel didn't quite understand why.

"Yeah, we uh..." Dean hesitated, and Castiel's body instinctively tensed. "We saw Crowley."

His breath caught in his throat, something it had never done when he wasn't human, and he shot upright on the couch, ignoring the screaming protests of his aching head.

"Crowley." There were so many bad memories associated with that name that did not bear thinking of right now. "What did he want?"

Dean gave a short laugh, entirely devoid of humor. "Just to talk. You believe that?"

He couldn't speak around the sudden, sharp pain in his chest he instinctively knew was not a physical ailment, and it took him a minute longer to reply than it should have.

"Yes."

"He wasn't proposing a deal or anything like that," Dean spoke quickly, hurriedly, as though trying to erase his last question with more words. That was something he did now, whenever Castiel paused for too long, or reacted in the wrong way. He didn't know whether to be grateful or not that his friend had developed the habit, but mostly he was just tired. "He just wanted to talk. Actually talk. Granted, it wasn't about anything Sam or I wanted to talk about, but, hey. It's an improvement, right?"

Dean was babbling. It made his head spin... more. Leaning back into the cushions he lifted his gaze to the bland, beige ceiling as he responded to what was not really a question at all with what was not an answer.

"You are upset."

"A little," Dean's admittance was quiet. "There were some hard truths in there, man."

He recognized the guilt in his friend's voice, and sought to remind him of the unreliability of its source. "_Crowley_ was telling the truth?"

"Unbelievable, ain't it?"

Dean's humor fell flat. Castiel was not convinced.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Cas, I'm sure." Dean paused, and when he spoke again the guilt was back, accompanied by sadness and what sounded like bone-deep exhaustion. "I... I need to talk to you, okay? But not over the phone. Sam and I are heading home now. Or we will be. In a moment. I just wanted to let you know where we were at."

"By calling me," he deadpanned. "In the middle of the night."

"Yes, Cas, by calling you in the middle of the night." Dean treated him to a hearty serving of sarcasm. "Why? Did I interrupt your beauty sleep or something?"

"I wasn't sleeping."

He winced as soon as he said it, knowing it was not an admittance that should have been made to Dean, of all people.

"Well, do." The response, when it came, was far less annoyed than he had expected. "Or have a midnight snack and watch TV, whatever. You're not sitting up all night with Sam's collection of old and musty. That's an order."

There was a terrifying amount of finality in those words.

"Dean..."

_Wait, please, don't..._

The dialing tone was a scream in his ear.

_...leave me alone._

"You've always got little old me."

Balthazar's reflection in the fan blade smiled, and Castiel closed his eyes so he would not have to witness the moment when his own blade skewered his friend.

* * *

Castiel didn't avoid sleep for the reasons that Dean thought he did. He knew the older Winchester thought it was nightmares that drove him towards insomniac tendencies, something Dean was relatively sympathetic of, having suffered a plague of his own in that regard. But Dean's attempt at empathetic understanding fell flat, because it was not nightmares that drove the former angel to avoid slumber, but rather their complete and utter lack. When he slept he was not greeted by renditions of his past mistakes, he did not have nightmares, he did not even _dream_, there was just nothing; a dark void of nonexistence that terrified him more than even his blackest memories. He feared that emptiness, feared that one day he would enter it and never return, and so he avoided it, lest those fears ever be realized.

Unfortunately, he had learnt that the human body would only stand the denial of things it deemed necessities for so long before it took matters into its own hands. Things he would have been able to ignore completely as an angel becoming more and more insistent until disregarding their presence became painful. He had learnt that lesson the hard way during his first few days as a human, when he had almost killed himself through dehydration simply because he had had other things on his mind and he had wanted to believe his body would still do as he willed without protest. He had clearly been delusional, even more so by the time he realized it was _not_ going to accept his decision not to see to its needs, and it was not a mistake he had made again.

So he _did_ sleep, fully aware he could not wholly do away with the ritual, but apparently a couple of hours here and there was not enough of a peace offering to sate his human body's need. Without his permission or his consent it decided enough was enough and took advantage of the fact he had taken to sitting with his eyes closed, throwing him into the deep sleep of the truly exhausted, a state of being he did not even realize he had succumbed to until it was disturbed.

Something hit the table with a loud 'thump', a noise not loud enough to wake him fully, deep as his sleep had been, but just draw him to the fringes of consciousness. The sound had been at a slight distance, but he detected a presence nearer, though neither registered as threat enough to stir more than he already had. He was drifting still, further towards sleep than wakefulness, and the voices that sounded around him were like vague echoes at the back of his mind.

"He okay?" Sam still sounded far away, which meant it was Dean hovering near enough to cast a shadow across the sofa.

"Dunno." Dean's hand touched his shoulder and shook gently. "Cas, buddy, you awake?"

What were supposed to be words left his mouth as a garbled mess that would have been quite frankly embarrassing had he been awake enough to care. Dean's amused snort suggested it might be brought up again when he was.

"He's fine," the older Winchester told Sam. "Just having a little slumber party."

The voices drifted away as the brothers went about their usual post-hunt routine and Castiel slipped closer to the void again, his distress at the abyss' proximity not enough to overcome the sheer fatigue his refusal to succumb for so long had caused. Instead he lingered on the brink, somewhere between true sleep and its false counterpart, staring into the chasm, but not quite ready to fall. He did not notice the presence this time until it was upon him, a gentle hand on his arm making his body jump whilst his mind dithered between plunging headlong into sleep and waking up to address whatever was touching him.

"C'mon, Cas, you can't sleep like this."

Dean was pulling gently on his elbow, trying to shift him from where he was hunched over the couch's arm, and Cas instinctively stiffened, unwilling to move… or just not wanting to. Dean's answer to this was, of course, to seize him by the shoulders and bodily _haul _him onto the cushions, ignoring the noise of protest the former angel made. The sudden movement was enough to pull him back to the surface, and he managed to open his eyes slightly this time, though there was no logic behind the amount of effort it took to raise his eyelids even a small crack.

"Dean…"

It was an intelligible word this time, at least, though the older Winchester didn't seem overly interested in his improved elocution.

"Go back to sleep," he ordered. "We'll talk later."

_Talk?_

His weary mind didn't allow time to consider the implications of that promise – threat? – and he was drifting again before Dean had even finished speaking. The warmth that wrapped itself around him a moment before his thoughts scattered made the vacuum seem for once bearable, and so he did not fight this time when his body demanded respite.

* * *

He woke hopelessly tangled in a soft, woolen blanket… and with Dean Winchester sitting on his leg, watching the television and completely ignoring the fact his choice of seat happened to partially consist of another living being. Indignant, Cas put the leg not trapped beneath the hunter's far from insubstantial weight to good use kicking him, _hard_, and got a considerable amount of satisfaction from watching a startled Dean tumble straight onto the floor.

Sam, who had had the decency to sit on the couch _not_ already occupied, snorted and came close to choking on his coffee, whilst Dean bounced up with alacrity that was almost alarming and a grin that was no less so.

"Sleeping beauty awakes!" he announced cheerfully, and then bent to retrieve the remote that had accompanied him in his descent. "Not a morning person, huh, Cas?"

"Morning?" he frowned, trying to do the calculations in his head as he pushed himself upright. "How long was I asleep?"

And, like magic, Dean's expression sobered. "Long enough to know you were blatantly lying the other night when you told me you were 'fine'."

"You do the same thing all the time," he retorted somewhat petulantly, beginning the laborious process of freeing himself from the blanket. Sam actually _did_ choke this time, whilst Dean's face twisted as though he wasn't quite sure which emotion he wanted to put on display.

"Well, well." In the end he settled on dry humour. "Look at you, walking and talking and everything. Guess you really were just giving us the cold shoulder all those times you played mute."

"_Dean_," Sam said, exasperated, and the elder Winchester subsided immediately, dropping down heavily on the couch so that Cas was forced to jerk his legs out of the way lest they both be crushed. Looking at Dean now he realized that, whilst _he_ might have slept, it did not look like the Hunter had at all.

"Something is wrong," he decided, eyes darting back and forth between the two brothers. There was no sign of any of his errant memories this morning, a fact for which he was incredibly grateful, because his senses were telling him whatever this was was going to need his full attention. "What did Crowley tell you?"

He addressed the question at Sam, mostly because Dean was glaring at the program on the television and clearly in no mood to talk. Sam, for his part, looked helplessly at his elder brother until Dean could no longer ignore him, and started cursing under his breath.

"This is _so_ not a morning conversation," he said, to which Sam rolled his eyes.

"And you think _waiting_ is going to make it any easier?"

"Would _you_ like to do this then, jackass?"

Sam held up his hands in surrender, and Cas tried to still the sense of impending doom settling somewhere in the pit of his stomach. Dean was too agitated, too on edge, and by the time he got up and started pacing Cas already knew something was terribly wrong, the action only confirmed it.

"Shit, I don't…" Dean stopped in the middle of the room, running his hands through his hair and looking anywhere but at the former angel. "Hey, you know that Crowley knew Naomi before, right?"

"Their exchange suggested prior interactions, yes," Cas answered hesitantly. "Why?"

"Well, because Crowley sorta, kinda told us they'd worked together on a… on a project."

"I don't understand." And he didn't. At all. "Why would he tell you what they were planning?"

"Mainly because the plan's already happened," Sam interjected. "Crowley just wanted us to know what they got away with right under our noses."

He waited for either of them to elaborate, but they used the silence to avoid making eye contact with him and to cast each other glances he expected were as difficult for each of them to translate as it was for him.

"What _did_ they get away with?" he asked at last, bracing for bad news, and wondering why Dean looked physically pained and Sam as guilty as he had ever seen him. It was, inevitably, Dean who walked across and seated himself on the coffee table, resting his elbows on his thighs and clasping his hands together as he leaned forward

"I'm not asking you to talk about any of the shit you don't want to talk about, okay? I just want you to listen to me for a sec. Can you do that?"

The need to disengage was instant and entirely reactive, but he controlled it as best he could, though, by the way Dean's hands jerked forward as if to grab him when he took flight, he guessed he hadn't been fully able to conceal his panic. There was a ghostly afterimage lingering around the edges of his vision, a warning that the mirages of memory were close by, ready to invade at a moment's notice, but he steeled himself and offered Dean a slow nod of encouragement, not trusting his voice enough to speak.

"Do you remember when we got back from Purgatory," Dean began hesitantly, and Cas could not help but notice the close scrutiny both brothers were placing him under, as if simply waiting for him to fall apart. After all that had happened lately he couldn't blame them for that expectation, but it didn't make him feel any more comfortable knowing their feelings were justified. "And you told me I remembered what happened there the way I _needed_ to remember it?"

"Yes." This was… bearable. The ghostly illusions had receded again, and the unease in his stomach loosened its coils a little. "I remember."

"Good, okay." Dean was out of his depth, that much was clear, but he forged on regardless. "Because I kinda think you're doing the same thing. Just, maybe not of your own volition."

"I don't understand."

He was saying that far too often lately, and he wondered when the brothers would get tired of explaining what he felt he should already know.

"I'm not doing a very good job of this, am I?" Dean grimaced slightly. "Let's see… Uh, I don't suppose you'd mind telling me exactly what happened when you first went back to Heaven. You know, after the Apocalypse?"

It was an odd question, and near a prequel to everything that had gone horribly wrong since. But Castiel wasn't guilty about anything that had happened then, or haunted by that memory in his waking hours, so he did not hesitate to answer.

"I met some of my brethren," he offered calmly. "They expressed both relief and surprise that I was still alive, and I attempted to explain my newfound understanding of the concept of free will. Raphael summoned me not long after, and announced his intention of taking command of the Hosts of Heaven and restarting the Apocalypse. I informed him that I would neither bow down to his authority nor support his cause, and he attempted to intimidate me into obedience through physical violence."

"Wow," Dean murmured. "He really didn't know you all that well, did he?"

"He also threatened to kill me if I did not kneel and swear obedience when he announced his right to rule, a threat that was indubitably within his power to carry out."

Dean looked like he was trying very hard to come up with a suitable name for Raphael that was most certainly not that which had been given to him at his creation, and it was Sam who pressed for more.

"So what did you do?"

"I returned here, to humanity," Castiel replied. "It was my intention to speak with Dean, but…"

"That was when Crowley showed up, wasn't it?" Dean guessed, and Castiel nodded silently. "How did he know you were going to be there?"

"I have learnt that Crowley has many spies in unexpected places." Castiel hadn't really thought on why the King of Hell was there at that particular time. Crowley had always seemed to know more than he ought, after all. "No doubt one of them informed him of what had transpired."

"You sure about that, Cas?" Dean was being gentle and pushy at the same time, and it made Castiel uneasy. "You sure somebody else didn't tell him?"

"I fail to see how anyone else would have benefitted from his presence there." He frowned, certain Dean was driving at a point, but unable to discern what it might be. He was also _talking_, something he had been avoiding doing for several months now, and the fact he had walked blindly into doing so was somewhat disconcerting. As an angel he would have already walked – or flown – away from this conversation. As a human he was stuck here, with an apparent compulsion to answer what was being asked. "Not even Crowley benefitted in the end."

"And there was nothing else?" Dean continued. "Nothing else that happened between Raphael taking you down a few pegs and you coming back downstairs? I mean, how did you get out of Heaven without him knowing? Surely he must have realized what you coming to see me would have meant."

"I…" It was true that at the time Raphael had had a complete awareness of events upstairs. Any ability to hide his dealings had come later, when he unleashed the power Crowley gave him in advance and lessened the archangel's complete control over the Host. "I suppose he did not care. Perhaps he even wanted me to try and rebel. I doubt he would have grieved over ending my existence a second time."

"Or maybe he didn't _know_," Dean offered an alternative explanation. "Maybe someone else smuggled you out because they didn't want him to know. Maybe someone else wanted you to meet and make a deal with Crowley because having Raphael in charge of Heaven was a spanner in the works for them."

Cas frowned, wondering exactly what it was the half-cured demon had told them. "That is unlikely."

"Okay, so tell me then," Dean posed another question. "Do you _remember_ leaving Heaven at all?"

"Of course, I…"

He stopped, because the words were not true and he was not sure why he had said them. But he _must_ remember leaving, surely? He remembered his panic and alarm over what Raphael intended. His determination to stop it. His fear he would be obliterated before he even had a chance to warn Dean, and then… then when Raphael had left him lying, bleeding on the grass the insistent thought that he _had_ to warn the surviving Winchester of what Heaven was planning. He had decided he must go and see Dean, to ask for help and to give warning both, but… how had he actually gone?

There were no recollections to bridge the gap between him lying there on the grass and then standing on the edge of Dean's false, domestic paradise debating with himself over whether he had any right to pull the Hunter back into this fight after all he had already sacrificed. There was not even the slightest glimmer of memory, just a big, empty _nothingness_ that was more terrifying then that which invaded his sleep. He was an angel, he did not simply _forget_ things, but no matter how he groped about in the darkness he couldn't find anything to fill the void in his memories.

"Cas?" Dean was still looking at him expectantly, as if he hadn't just posed a question that was unraveling Castiel's fragile mental faculties faster than it had any right to.

"I… I don't remember." Dean was reaching for him again, a hand aimed for his shoulder, but Castiel jerked away, suddenly distrustful, though he could not understand what had prompted such a feeling. "_Why_ don't I remember?"

"I'll explain, okay?" Dean was speaking quickly but soothingly, in a manner not unlike that he had used when trying to get Cas to acquiesce to being 'diffused', and that was _not_ a memory he needed to be dwelling on right now. "I'll explain, just… just calm down. We'll figure this out. Cas? _Cas_!"

But Castiel wasn't listening to his words anymore, because Dean wasn't supposed to know this. _Castiel_ wasn't supposed to know this. It was supposed to be buried, hidden, and his mind was desperately trying to find a way to forget what it had just remembered, acting on a compulsion he did not understand. A compulsion he expected wasn't his own that was screaming _forget, forget, forget_ and there was an urge, a terrible, terrifying urge to destroy both the other people in the room who knew what was not supposed to be known. He was at the same time immeasurably grateful and livid over the fact he no longer possessed his angel blade, Dean having picked it up when he left it lying on the table, because if he had had it right now it would have been incredibly easy to act on that compulsion.

Easy or not, he acted on it regardless, and it was with a distant sense of relief that he watched Dean easily block his wild attempt to strike the older Winchester. Their struggle was brief and brutal, and it ended with Castiel cracking his head on the coffee table on the way down, Dean pinning him in place with an arm across his chest as he hissed curses through a lip split by an elbow that had proved Castiel wasn't wholly inept in hand to hand combat. Even if he was used to packing a whole lot more force behind his punches, and _not_ used to the swimming sensation invoked by his abused skull, the stickiness spreading on the side of his head suggesting he had broken the skin there.

"Cas, it's me, it's Dean. It's just me. Come on, buddy, it's me."

"I know," he croaked, and it was truly a pitiful sound.

"Shit, Cas." Dean's face was a mixture of relief and horror as he tentatively took his weight off the pinned former angel. "Are you okay? No… No, stupid question. Was that me? Did I do that?"

Castiel didn't attempt to sit up even once Dean's arm was gone, mostly because the room was swinging left and right in an odd, swaying manner. He did, however, answer the question, and it felt somewhat strange having the freedom to do so.

"No, it wasn't you," he said slowly, uncertainly, but trying to obliterate the guilty look in his friend's eyes. " I believe that that was what you would call a 'failsafe'."

"A failsafe for _what_?" Dean demanded, openly disturbed now, but as Castiel was distracted by examining the blood that coated his fingers when he touched the side of his head it was Sam who answered.

"Isn't it obvious, Dean?"

Dean's face shifted again, to out-and-out anger.

"_Naomi_," he hissed, and it was odd, because the pieces hadn't really fallen into place until then, and now that they had Castiel felt as though the ground beneath him had just vanished, leaving him to tumble through empty space that had no end.

"_No_," he denied it outright, aware he was trembling but uncaring of the fact as he pushed himself upright and used the couch to brace his back. "Naomi wasn't there. She _wasn't there_."

"She was, Cas." Dean was gentle, but relentlessly firm. "She was there the whole time. She made a deal with Crowley whereby they both got to screw you over so that she could take over Heaven without worrying about the archangels and Crowley could become super-powered or whatever it was he wanted to do."

"That's not…" The words struck home, pounding against everything he thought he knew, and Castiel didn't know what to do with any of this. "They didn't… She _couldn't_ have."

"She did, Cas," Dean sighed, dragging his hand through his hair. "She… Her and Crowley both… they used you as their own freakin' personal key to their twisted idea of Paradise and we… we didn't even _notice_ anything was wrong until it was too late."

"But, I remember…"

He remembered each terrible, _wrong_ choice. He remembered how certain he must have been. He remembered sticking by his decisions because he was doing this to _protect_ the Winchesters and why couldn't they understand that? He remembered torturing an innocent woman, breaking Sam's mind, and killing Balthazar, without whose support he would have lost the war before he even had a chance to open Purgatory. He remembered when it had all gone wrong, the blood he had spilt and the scorched wings that had covered green pastures. He _remembered_, and it was a curse not being able to forget what he had done. What _he_ had done, except Dean was saying…

"It wasn't you, Cas." But it _was_. It was his hands and his Grace and… "That _bitch_ used her fucking probes to make you do whatever she wanted, and then when things went to hell in a hand basket she left you to shoulder the blame."

"No." He shook his head frantically, shying away from Dean's attempt to initiate contact again. "No, _stop it_." Because he couldn't hear this. He couldn't hear… couldn't be offered absolution now. Or ever. And not like this. _Not like this_.

"Cas…?" Dean was wary now, perhaps aware he had said too much, or not enough, or… or Castiel didn't even know, and this was too much and… and he was quick enough now that he was up off the floor and out of reach before Dean or Sam could follow, fleeing to the false sanctuary of his room, where the only thing left to torment him was his own thoughts.

* * *

"Well." Dean dropped down onto the couch for the second time, rubbing absently at his swelling lip and with a scowl on his face that could have killed under the right circumstances. "That went superbly well."

"You're not going to go and check on him?" Sam was staring after Cas as if he would like to do nothing more, but Dean shook his head, letting out a slow breath and rubbing at his eyes in an effort to dispel the exhaustion that had returned with a vengeance.

"Guy needs some space, Sammy, he's okay," he assured his brother, then amended that statement. "Or as okay as anyone can be under the circumstances. I'll give him some time to sort his head out, and then…"

Well, one step at a time seemed too much right now, and maybe he hadn't handled that as well as he could have, but, damn it, he was downright _furious_ about all of this. Cas had only _ever_ tried to do the right thing, and his fucked up family had only ever tried to stop him. Warning Dean, helping Dean, trying to stop the Apocalypse, trying to stop the Apocalypse 2.0, just generally trying to set shit right. Cas tried so hard only to be beaten down every freakin' single time so that now… _now_ they were expecting him to be happy_, _even_ grateful_ maybe, over the fact the time when he had almost destroyed the world he had been under the influence, the _control_ of someone else.

Cas deserved better than that, and he probably deserved better than Dean's half-assed attempts to help. A part of him wished that he hadn't listened to Sam. That he'd decided to keep this little nugget of information to himself. Castiel had almost been himself when he woke up this morning, and despite the fact he shoved Dean on the floor the hunter could have laughed with sheer relief at seeing the familiar, putout expression on the former angel's face. It had been close enough to normality, a normality they hadn't had for so _long_, that Dean could almost have been happy had things just stayed that way. But Cas had not forgotten his phone call, and he hadn't wanted to lie, even if the truth had been excruciatingly painful.

Painful for Cas to hear, and painful for Dean to _see_. Cas wasn't supposed to look that confused, that lost, that downright panicked and scared that flight was the most appropriate reaction he could think of. But then, things hadn't been as they should be for a long, long time. Dean wasn't even sure he _knew_ what they should be anymore.

"I need a drink," he muttered under his breath, not waiting for Sam's reply as he stumbled almost blindly towards the kitchen, uncharitable thoughts swinging back and forth in his head.

_Fuck Crowley and Naomi and Raphael and… You know what? Fuck angels in general. The only one worth the name is Castiel, and his reward for that? For being what he's damned well supposed to be? Well, hey, let's play a game, shall we? It's called see how many freakin' hits little brother can take before we snap his mind completely. Assholes. The lot of them. _

He yanked the fridge open, then slammed it shut without touching any of its contents, turning around to let his back hit the door as he slid slowly to the ground and simply sat there. He was so done with all of this, but he had realized a long time ago that once you are in there is no getting out. Just the opposite, in fact. The longer you were in this life the worse shit got, and he and Sam had been hunters a hell of a long time. There was probably a moral in there somewhere, but he was too freakin' tired to care.

Leaning his head back against the refrigerator he let his gaze slide upwards to the ceiling, the coarse words falling from his lips with sincere feeling.

"Screw you too."

* * *

He sat on the floor long after his ass had gone numb and his neck had gotten a crick in it from being trapped in the same position for far too long. Sam, who was getting a hell of a lot better at reading moods, let him be, and he was still sitting in exactly the same position several hours later when Castiel joined him. The former angel slid into the spot on his right, their shoulders touching, and Dean wasn't sure whether the gesture was meant to offer comfort or take it. In the end he figured it didn't really matter, because he was pretty sure it was doing both.

"You okay?"

His voice was croaky, annoyed at its lengthy period of disuse, and his neck audibly cracked as he lowered his head to glance Castiel's way. The former angel was sitting with his knees drawn partway up to his chest, his elbows resting atop and his hands loosely clasped together. It reminded Dean of the way he used to sit in Purgatory, another habit picked up along the way.

"My head hurts," Castiel admitted after a beat too many of silence. Dean cast a glance at the dried blood leftover from the wound he had unintentionally inflicted whilst trying to stop Castiel from throttling him, and winced in sympathy.

"Yeah, I can imagine."

"That isn't what I meant." Castiel's voice was soft, musing almost, and he was staring at his hands in a way that made Dean uncomfortable. "I'm talking about my mind, Dean. It's not… it's not _right_, and I don't know if it ever has been, but now it's…"

"It's what, Cas?" Because he _wasn't_ going to let silence become a thing again, not now that Castiel was finally _talking_ to him.

"When I took on Sam's madness," Castiel offered hesitantly. "I saw things that weren't there, and even once the hallucinations were gone my thoughts remained scattered. But no matter where they went, whatever I was thinking of at the time was always clear. It may not have seemed it to anyone on the outside, and I doubt I made much sense, but even if the focus of my attention shifted with the seconds I always _knew_ what I was focusing on. After what… After what Naomi did to me, what Metatron did, it's different, and not entirely better. Things keep… keep _overlapping_, like all the walls are broken and everything has just poured into a single, churning mass, and I can't fix it. I can't find clarity, I can't sort anything back how it is meant to be, and I don't…" Taking a deep breath and turning away from his hands, Cas met Dean's gaze with stark honesty. "I'm not okay, Dean, I'm not. And I don't know if I ever will be again."

Honesty, he was learning, freakin' _hurt_.

"Hey," he said, because Castiel was staring at his hands again, looking more than a little lost. He waited until the former angel was looking at him, then he continued, "We'll figure this out, okay? We will. Even if we have to bang on Heaven's gates and get your mojo back to do it."

"That is a kind offer, Dean." The smile was small, though undeniably present. "But I would much rather you and your brother did not risk yourselves for me again."

"If we decide to do that it's on us, Cas, not on you." It was a necessary reminder, but he wasn't sure if Cas understood the fact he couldn't take responsibility for the actions of those around him acting _for_ him. He had learnt most of what he knew of being human from Dean, after all, and Dean was the crowning example of taking on burdens that weren't actually yours. He knew it well, and had no idea how to stop himself from doing it, so he guessed he wasn't the best person to try and stop Cas from doing it either. "Besides, it might not come to that yet. I mean, you're sure this isn't just a time related healing process? You know, give you time to build your walls back, brick by brick sort of thing? You've gotten better than you were before, haven't you?"

"I have learnt to avoid certain outcomes," Cas responded somewhat evasively. "And to ignore certain things, but, if I am perfectly honest with you, Dean, my mind is not much clearer than it was when I first arrived."

"I guess I didn't really help with that, huh?" He had known, really, that Cas wasn't _better_ in the literal sense of the word, and what had he done? Dropped another barrowload of shit on top of him, just for good measure. "I'm sorry, Cas."

"Don't be," the former angel rebuked him mildly. "It did offer… some clarity."

"But you still blame yourself for all the crap that happened, don't you?" Because there was no _way_ it was that easy.

"I was under Naomi's control when she ordered me to kill you," Cas answered levelly. "I stopped."

Oh, shit.

Shit, shit, _shit._

"_No_, Cas," he turned on his friend with passion in his voice, because there was no way in _hell_ he was letting the former angel think like that. "Don't you do that to yourself. Don't you _dare_. She fucking used you, okay? That's on her. She used you and I'm sure you fought like hell. Don't you get it? Stopping Raphael was something you _wanted_ to do, and she _knew_ it, Cas. She knew you just wanted to keep Sam and I safe. She knew you didn't want to pull us back into all that crap we'd… _I'd_ just gotten out of it. She didn't just turn you into her puppet, Cas, she outright _manipulated_ you, took what good intentions you had and literally paved you a road to hell with them."

"I killed Samandriel."

Sometimes Dean thought Castiel was ridiculously opposed to the idea of forgiveness. Like he didn't even comprehend what it meant. And maybe he didn't, if he thought you had to _earn_ the damn thing.

"And I'm pretty sure she almost turned your brain to mush _forcing_ you to do that," he said firmly. "Or was I just imagining the fact that you were bleeding from your damned _eye_?"

"Dean…"

"Just hear me out, okay?" He didn't want to hear Cas condemning himself for what had to be the umpteenth time. "You haven't been yourself, _really_ yourself, since we averted the whole end of the world thing. Whatever she did to you, it messed you up, Cas, and maybe some of the mistakes you've made since are yours alone, but I probably wouldn't be thinking all that rationally if someone had shoved a freakin' probe into my eye socket either. The bitch planted a damn _failsafe _to stop anyone from realizing the fact your memories weren't in perfect order, what other compulsions do you think she stuck in there to make sure her little plan didn't come to light too soon?"

Cas' expression was slightly pained. "She was in my head before that, Dean."

"Before what?" he asked, stomach curling in anticipation.

"Before the Apocalypse," Cas elaborated, fully justifying Dean's unease. "I asked her how many times. I wanted to know how much I'd forgotten. How many horrors I had partaken in without knowing."

"And what did she say?" A part of him didn't want to know. The other part of him just wanted Cas to tell him the whole messed up story, so he could patch his angel back together as best he could.

" 'Too many'," Cas replied, something like the barest touch of humor snaking its way through his words. "It would seem I have always been something of a problem."

"So you made her life hell," Dean interpreted with a grin as he clapped his friend on the shoulder. "I'd say that's a job well done. Bitch damn well deserved it."

"There is so much I do not remember, though," Cas answered quietly. "So much of my life that is simply _gone_ because she took it away from me. Who I was during the Apocalypse… was that even me, Dean? Were you even dealing with Castiel, as I was meant to be? How many different people have I been that she has simply wiped away?"

"C'mon, Cas, what are you even doing thinking like that?" He nudged his friend, making sure he had the ex-angel's attention. "You've always been Cas, underneath all the crap they tried to bury you alive with. That's the problem. They can't get _rid_ of you. Tax accountants are always bastards to deal with, you know, and the holier they are the worse they get."

Cas stared at him for a moment, a smile, a whole, damn, _genuine _smile quirking on his lips. "You are so strange."

"Trait of humanity, buddy." He grinned. "You'd better get used to it, because you're not going anywhere anytime soon if I have a say in the matter. And trust me, after all the shit we've been through, I'm not _not_ having a say. But you gotta talk to me, man. No more of this macho angel, crap, okay? You got a problem, scrambled eggs in your head or whatever, you tell me. I don't care if you're talking about bees and honey or jackshit, I'm your friend, and maybe I'm a lousy one most of the time, but I'm here to listen regardless. You're family, Cas, and I'm not talking about that shitty excuse for one you had upstairs. I'm talking about _real_ family. The type of family that sticks by you no matter what. Do you get it? Do you actually, really understand? Or should I fetch Sam so he can go all sweet and mushy on you?"

"I believe I grasped the underlying sentiment." Cas nodded. "Thank you, Dean."

"Hey," he rose as he spoke, stretching his reprovingly stiff muscles as he did so. "Don't mention it. You're kinda the angel that raised me from perdition, you know. I figure I owe you a favor or two."

"You don't owe me anything," Castiel assured him, and Dean simply smiled.

"You let me be the judge of that."

He offered his hand to the former angel still seated on the floor, and there was not the slightest hint of hesitation in Castiel's acceptance of the gesture, Dean hauling the slighter man effortlessly to his feet.

"Dude," he muttered disapprovingly. "We've gotta get some decent meat on those bones. Humans aren't actually supposed to be light as a feather, you know."

He paused just long enough to rub his hands together in anticipation, Sam choosing the opportune moment to set foot in the kitchen, so that he could address his question at his family as a whole.

"So," he said cheerfully. "Whose up for some pie?"


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I presently have two WIPs running, about a dozen one-shot requests I still have every intention of filling, and an original story all in need of attention. So, what do I write a chapter for? The story marked 'Complete' of course. There is a method to my madness somewhere. I'll let you know why I figure out what it is.**

**In the meanwhile, read, review, and enjoy.**

**Cheerio,**

**Cheekyrox**

* * *

**Part 5: Hope Falls by the Wayside**

* * *

Like so many other heavenly things, the inner workings of an angel's mind were not a device that had ever been meant to lie within the reach of human understanding. Just as humanity possessed countless means to perplex those who were meant to be their celestial guardians, the angels themselves had their own mysteries, and it was somewhat inevitable, Castiel thought, that one of those mysteries had once again proven to be his undoing.

"I don't get it," Dean said, and Castiel did his very best to keep his focus on the Hunter, and not the grinning ghost of Balthazar chattering amiably with a glass in his hand as he moved through an equally insubstantial rendition of his house. There were other memories blending both atop and beneath that one, but he had learnt that the most recent were usually the clearest, and the most likely to supersede reality when it came time to organize his mental priorities. "I mean, whatever Naomi did she did before Metratron got involved, right? And you were fine before… fine-ish. Why does being human make such a difference?"

"Because human beings are not meant to live through millennia." It was an impossible concept to explain, but he tried nonetheless, simply because Dean had asked. "You are built instead to endure the trials of a shorter and harsher existence. To reconcile terrible recollections with emotions angels are not meant to feel. You are designed to forget what you must, and endure what you can't, and even what you choose to remember fades with time. Words blur, senses fail, and clarity becomes the uncertainty of time. Humanity is built to forget so it can survive. You hold only that which is most important to you, that which leaves the deepest marks, for better or for ill."

"But it's different for angels," Dean guessed. "Perfect recall and all that, right?"

"Not a single detail goes unmarked," he murmured, blinking sharply in an effort to dispel the entirely disconcerting sight of Hell's fires flickering around the seated Hunter. "And it must all be kept in order. Imagine a library, Dean, where every book has its place, pulled out at need, but otherwise left in its place."

"Sounds like a Sam kind of paradise," the elder Winchester quipped, and seeing that smile with Hell's furnace in the background was quite frankly disturbing. "So… somebody messed up the filing system?"

"No." This was where the explanation grew more difficult. "The… the _books_ are still where they are meant to be, but someone has torn out the pages and scattered them in all the wrong places."

"So it's a three-in-one type of thing? You don't get one without the others?"

Hesitantly, he nodded. It wasn't a perfect understanding, but perhaps it would suffice. Dean appeared to think on the matter for a moment, before asking, softly and honestly and with a hint of trepidation that suggested he dreaded the answer.

"Just how many other books are you reading right now, Cas?"

He could not answer that question, mostly because he had no way of doing so _truthfully_, and Dean must have read his helplessness in his face, because the Hunter drew in a sharp breath and wordlessly dropped the question.

"Okay… Okay, we can figure this out. We just need to… I mean, how would you have fixed this as an angel?"

"As an angel, I still possessed the key to the vault." He was growing tired of creating ways to explain this, but Dean wanted to understand, and it was likely he would need to in the future. "If I could not fix the mess Naomi left behind I could at least lock it away, and the damage would have healed eventually, even if gaps remained. When Metatron took my Grace he took away that luxury also."

"And you can't fix it as you are now?" It was not even a slim hope, but rather a false one, and he suspected Dean knew that before he even voiced the question.

"You said it yourself, Dean, this is a wound, and without my Grace I have no power to heal it."

"That just means you can't magic it better with a snap of your fingers," Dean pointed out. "Humans heal too, you know, even if not quite so impressively fast."

"The rate at which the human body recovers from harm without intervention is infinitesimal by comparison, and damage rendered upon the mind often results in a more prolonged recovery than physical injury. How long are you prepared to wait, Dean? And how much damage might I cause in the interim?"

"Who says you're going to cause any damage at all?" the Hunter challenged. "You're not the first crazy I've had to haul off the train, after all. So why don't you stop dancing around the subject and just tell me what you need to fix this?"

"I do not know what I need." It was a lack of knowledge he could have done without. A void where surety should have existed, _had_ existed, before it was stolen away from him along with something far more precious. From what little he understood of humanity, the pain of loss was meant to fade with time, but the pulsing, invisible wound that marked the point where his Grace had been ripped from him still throbbed with an ache just as sharp as it had been when Metatron finished what Naomi had begun in unmaking his mind, and unmade his very _being_. "I do not know if…"

"It _can_ be fixed, you know that, right?" Dean had a habit of interrupting him whenever he was about to say something the Hunter did not wish to hear. Given that Dean had to know what he was going to say in order to do so, Cas did not see what he accomplished by preventing the words from being uttered aloud. "It's not irreparable, neither are you, and you're not allowed to argue with me on that one."

"If it can't…"

"_Cas_, what did I just say?" Dean looked irritated now, his expression twisting in preparation for a fight, but Castiel would not be so easily dissuaded.

"If it cannot be fixed," he pressed onwards, and, recognizing the futility of trying to silence him before he was done, Dean grudgingly let him speak. "Then I simply wish you to know that I am grateful you are willing to try. Perhaps this time, if we are fortunate, I will be able to clean up my mess before it turns into an even greater one."

"Okay, this is where you're thinking is all wrong." Dean pinned him with that look that was purposefully designed to make him feel far denser than a celestial had any right to feel. "First off, this isn't just _your_ mess to clean up. In fact it's Metatron's mess, Naomi's too, to a certain point, and just because we're going to end up doing it doesn't mean we were the ones who caused it."

"You cannot make me blameless in this, Dean." He appreciated that the Hunter was willing to believe him innocent of so many of the crimes he had committed, but he had made his own mistakes, even as it seemed many had simply been forged for him. "It was my choice to trust Metatron. To ignore Naomi. To ignore _you._ There is damage here that I caused. That I must at least try to heal."

"And what about the damage they did to _you_, Cas?" Dean's voice was soft and fierce at the same time. "Where does that come into account, huh? When does the freakin' world finally decide it's time to give you a damn break?"

"I have been broken before." Dean looked slightly taken aback by that honest admission, but Castiel spoke nothing less than the truth, and the truth was he no longer knew what it felt like to be a whole. "You told me then it made no difference to the measure to which I could be held accountable."

Dean's face went shockingly pale, then, though Castiel did not quite understand why. To his knowledge he had said nothing to cause such a reaction, but his knowledge had been flawed before, and could easily be again. Watching the speechless Hunter somewhat anxiously he unconsciously settled himself further back in his seat, bracing for what was surely nothing less than a coming storm.

* * *

_'Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas! Clean up your mess!'_

The echo of his own ultimatum was a dull roar in Dean's ears as he stared across the table at the being he dared to call his best friend. They were quite possibly the cruelest words he had ever thrown at the angel, the fruit of a moment of anger and frustration and loss – loss, because he had just wanted _his_ Cas back again. The problem was that he _had_ cared that Cas was broken. He'd cared a lot, but it had been easier to lash out than to deal with the fact every time he looked at the angel he saw a foreign twist to his features. How every time he spoke to him it was only to find their conversation dissolving into nonsense. How both those things and the myriad of other, wronggestures were too much to bear because the longer they lasted the more damned _permanent _they became in his mind. He'd held onto his anger at Cas for so long not because he was still truly angry, but because doing so was the only way to protect himself from the pain of losing his best friend _all over again_. That note of forgiveness Cas had detected in his voice? It had existed a long, long time before he actually let himself show it.

He'd forgotten what he said in that cabin, though, the moment he'd let his anger slip away. They'd just been words, insignificant in the larger scheme of things. Cas hadn't even reacted to them. Hadn't made any sign that he even knew Dean was angry at him, going on about Twister and ducking in and out again too quickly for anything he said to make even the slightest lick of sense. If Dean had spared a thought for the angel's reaction at all it had simply been annoyance that Cas wasn't listening to him. He'd never imagined that those words would stick. That, of all the things he'd ever said to his friend, Cas would choose words unmeant and uttered only in anger as those most worthy of remembrance.

How many other things had he said and forgotten? The throwaway lines and the playful insults that Sam would have answered in kind but Cas could have so easily taken to heart? He'd always assumed the angel didn't understand his place in Dean's circle of protection because of his own dickish family, it had never even occurred to him that _he_ might be the source of that confusion. Heaven knew, and Hell along with it, no doubt, that he could be a real jerk sometimes. Sam certainly never hesitated to tell him that at every opportunity, and he'd thought Cas understood as well. Being a dick didn't mean he didn't care. Usually it was a sign of the exact opposite.

_'Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas! Clean up your mess!'_

Yeah, he could kinda see where the confusion had come from.

"I'm beginning to think we need to keep lists." His voice was weak, the humor a bare, frayed strand, and he watched confusion form creases on the former angel's brow.

"Lists?"

"Yeah." Throwing his weight back in his chair he kept his voice deliberately light. "Of how many times we've said or done dickish things to each other, just so we can keep track of what we're apologizing for."

It was no surprise to see the bewilderment in Cas' expression deepen, and, hey, apparently baffling the hell out of the guy was good therapy, because Cas' gaze hadn't strayed from Dean to some phantom for the last few minutes or so.

"You know I care, right?" It was amazing, really, how Sam could be completely submerged in his own thing on the other side of the room but suddenly alert and listening the moment a potential chick-flick moment cropped up. Dean adamantly ignored his brother's shameless eavesdropping, because this was important, and dammit, Cas needed to _understand._ "You know I do – and _did_ – care if you're broken or hurt or whatever."

The understanding that bloomed in Cas' expression was not comprehension of what he was trying to impart, but of what had caused the sudden change in subject. "You were angry, Dean, and you had a right to be. You have no need to apologize for words uttered in the past."

He knew Cas too well to let it end there. "So you know I never meant it, then?"

Cas' eyes flickered, even as his face remained still and earnest. "Of course."

_You lying bastard_.

Prepping himself for another round of verbal combat, Dean pushed. "And you never once thought I did?"

The angel had never been good at lying, not when directly questioned, and maybe that was why he'd simply dodged answering so often. He didn't have the advantage Dean did of simply throwing in half-truths or complete fibs when things got too uncomfortable. Right now he didn't even have the advantage of disappearing, so his method of evasion was reduced to an averted gaze and a hint of reluctance to his words that indicated he most likely knew how well they would be received.

"After what I did to Sam I had no right to ask anything of you. Not civility, not friendship, and certainly not concern. I did not expect you to care, Dean. You had no reason to anymore."

Because Cas saw himself as that disposable. That easy to cast aside. Unmemorable, unimportant, unworthy of the same, simple gifts he had so thoughtlessly bestowed upon Dean: Loyalty, faith, friendship, and _forgiveness_, the last being the one that had always proven mindboggling.

"What _Naomi_ did to Sam." That little fact was going to take some reinforcing, it seemed, a duty the elder Winchester would all too gladly undertake. "Not you."

"What she made me do," Cas corrected him. "I could have stopped her. I _should_ have."

"Right." He let sarcasm color his response. "Because you were clearly so much stronger than she was."

Castiel frowned at him, poised to argue. "Dean…"

"No." That single word was his answer. Absolute. Complete. But, because this was Cas, he added more regardless. "No, Cas, you _can't_ keep doing this. You can't keep finding reasons to blame yourself for what happened. You've gotta let it go, man, or it's not going to matter whether we fix your mind or not, because the guilt will just eat you alive."

Cas lowered his gaze, and Dean let him stew, hoping rather than knowing the former angel would share his thoughts when he was ready. Cas had been a lot more talkative since their little tête-à-tête on the kitchen floor, but it would be all too easy for him to slip back into the silent shell he had been before Dean dropped a loaded bomb on his head.

"I do not want forgiveness."

Dean let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Why not? You were pretty eager to shove it down my throat."

"I do not want forgiveness," Castiel clarified. "Because accepting forgiveness would mean accepting that there was nothing I could have done to change what happened."

"Because not being able to stop something terrible from happening is clearly so much worse than being responsible for it?" He didn't get that. Couldn't wrap his head around it.

"Because there are meant to be _choices_, Dean. We stopped the Apocalypse, why couldn't I stop this as well?"

The broken edges were back; Sharp, jagged shards of Castiel's splintered spirit masquerading as words, and Dean wished he knew how to fix this. How to find a way out between the rock and the hard place. His choices were pretty shoddy, though. Either he told Cas he was right and if he'd just been a little bit stronger he could have stopped this way back before Purgatory became another one of their nightmares, or he told Cas he was wrong and that Free Will wasn't really worth a damn because the moment you understood it a psycho bitch with a probe was just going to take it away from you.

"There were choices, Cas." His mouth had gotten ahead of his mind, but it seemed to know what it was doing, so he let it have free reign. "They just weren't yours to make this time. You got the earth shattering decision last time, right? Rebelling against Heaven, derailing the Big Plan. I mean, seriously, think about how many times over we'd be dead right now without you. The Apocalypse was _our_ problem, humanity's problem, and you went to bat for us. Round two was our turn. Our choice. And we made the wrong one."

Cas wouldn't say it, but Dean knew he didn't understand.

"You were right about one thing, Cas."

The former angel eyed him skeptically, clearly expecting some kind of verbal trap. "What is that?"

"You _do_ always come when we call. The only times you haven't were when seriously bad shit was going down. Shit like Bible Bootcamp. Sam and I, we should have known something was wrong the moment it took a magical mystery prize to get you downstairs."

The former angel was looking at him with something like exasperation now. "What happened to me was not your fault."

"Who else was there, Cas?" he asked, and it was an honestly meant question. "It had to be us. You didn't _have_ anyone else." Not anyone who knew Cas well enough to realize something was wrong early enough to _do_ something about it, anyway. "The point is if you're going to be throwing blame around you can't get away without pitching some our way, oh, and how about parking a whole truckload in front of Naomi's door, huh? This was _her_ master plan, after all, but I don't see _her_ cleaning up any of her messes."

"She's dead, Dean."

"That never stopped you." He hadn't really meant to say that, it had just sort of fallen out, but the honest grin it startled out of the former angel made him kind of think he should let his mouth outrun his brain a little more often. "Which is exactly how I know this is fixable. You didn't rise from the dead multiple times only to get taken down by something as trivial as a disorganized library. So, come on. Hit me. What's the easiest way to repair the walls?"

"I do not know what the easiest way is," Cas' replied. "In fact, the only way I know of to heal such damage would require the restoration of my Grace."

"So we'll work from there, then, and if that doesn't work we'll find another way. We're going to fix this, Cas. We're going to fix _you_, and then we're going to find Metatron and send him off to join every other baddie who ever thought messing with the Winchesters was a good idea."

* * *

Dean's life had this habit, a particularly nasty habit at that, of letting him think something good had just happened only for that something good to turn around and be something really, really bad. He should have remembered that. It was a lesson that had be reinforced often enough, but, somewhere between Sam being okay and Castiel not being okay but just _being_ there, he managed to forgot that the Universe hated him and everyone he cared about.

That was a mistake.

As it turned out, finding a way to get Cas back his Grace was definitely one of those things filed under a hell of a lot easier to say than do. The Men of Letters' bunker was a rich resource when it came to practically anything, but trolling through all that information was tedious to say the least, particularly when they had no idea if what they were looking for was even here. Dean was pretty sure the former angel wasn't all that approving of the fact they were putting so much time into this project, but Cas knew better than to voice any such thoughts aloud, so their work went on unhindered.

Until the unthinkable happened, and Cas got worse.

Dean hadn't been expecting it, not really, because everything had been going so well and Cas deteriorated so fast it was almost like watching a bomb go off. He'd known the ex-angel wasn't okay, mostly because Cas was actually being honest now and had told him what the hell was going on, but he'd figured the multilayered walks down memory lane would be just like all the other problems they'd dealt with so far. Something that could be faced, confronted, and eventually overcome. Something Cas would be able to keep at bay until they got him his mojo back, even if he and Sam were like grounded schoolboys again from the moment the former angel admitted it was easier with them around.

He should have known, really, that they would never get off that lightly.

It began innocuously enough, with headaches Dean had told the former angel he was going to have to accept as par for the course if he insisted on avoiding sleep until exhaustion dragged him under. The dizzy spells that began to strike out of the blue and sent Castiel grasping for the nearest sturdy object also fell easily beneath the definition of symptoms of sleep deprivation, and if they set off warning bells in the back of Dean's head they weren't so serious as to cause genuine alarm. Migraines were not an unheard of affliction, either, and if they occurred more often and lasted far longer than they had any right to then, well, not sleeping could cause that, right? He did object to Castiel's suddenly diminished appetite, but seeing as the former angel simply seemed to be _forgetting_ he even needed to eat he didn't immediately chalk that up as another symptom. Because there _weren't_ any symptoms. There just weren't.

Convulsions, however, were not so easily explained away, and when Castiel finally grew still again, no doubt bearing new bruises from where Dean and Sam had been forced to pin him down, Sam glanced across the former angel's prone body and spoke the words Dean had been trying to ignore.

"We need help, Dean."

He didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to admit that his help wasn't going to cut it, because wanting to fix Cas should have been enough, dammit. Knowing that if he answered Sam now he would regret whatever words left his mouth he instead shifted his grasp on the limp ex-angel and uttered a sharp command.

"Help me get him off the floor."

Sam's lips tightened in that way they did when he was unhappy about something, but he didn't protest, moving to support Castiel's legs as together the two brothers hefted him off the kitchen tiles and made the short trip to the couch Cas inexplicably preferred over the bed in his room. The angel did not resist any of their actions, and though his eyes were half open Dean seriously doubted he was even aware of what was happening. The normally piercing blue was too glazed for that, Castiel's features and limbs alike utterly slack.

"Cas?" The angel was still breathing, which at least prevented any outright panic as he leaned over and tapped gently on his friend's cheek. "Cas, you with us?"

He didn't really need the complete lack of response to tell him the answer was 'no', but he had hoped...

"Dean," Sam spoke behind him, gentle but firm, and if he kept using his victim voice on his brother much longer then Dean was going to deck him. "We _need_ help."

"Oh, yeah?" He swung on his brother, upset and angry and exhausted when he had no reason to be. This wasn't fair. Castiel was supposed to be getting better. They'd talked, had a heart to heart and everything and why couldn't it just be that simple? "And who do you suggest we ask for help, Sam? Some damn shrink who wouldn't know how to begin fixing any of this?"

His voice had grown progressively louder as he spoke, but Sam remained calm in the face of his ire, not giving Dean the excuse he needed to punch him.

"I wasn't thinking about a shrink," he replied. "I know that wouldn't work. But..." He trailed off, which meant he knew Dean wasn't going to like what he said next. "Maybe we should try calling an angel."

Dean was too far gone to care in that moment that he had just laughed in his brother's face.

"I'm serious, Dean," Sam objected, looking put out.

"You're serious?" The words escaped his lips, sharp and biting. "Oh, of _course_ you're serious. Well, let's go for it Sam. Let's just summon one of the frigging bastards who did this to him in the first place, shall we? Why _not_ let them finish the job, after all? In fact, why stop at just one? I mean, they're probably standing in line, ready and waiting, so why don't you just call up a whole garrison while you're at it! Maybe even Crowley, because he'll want a piece of the action for sure. Just invite the whole damn neighborhood already!"

"Dean," Sam interrupted, his face expressing a dozen emotions Dean didn't want to see. "You know that's not what I meant. But Cas isn't alright, and I don't think what Naomi did is something we can fix."

"We _are_ fixing it," he hissed back through clenched teeth. "He was _better_."

"And now he's worse again." He hated Sam when he was being practical. Hated him even more for being _right_. "I really think that…"

"We are _not_ calling any angels, okay?" He wasn't letting this go any further than just some mad idea, because Sam was liable to go and do it if he didn't stamp on it until even the slightest flicker of inspiration was dead. "That is absolutely off the table."

"Dean…"

"I said _no_, Sam."

His brother glowered at him, and for a moment he thought they were going to have an all out _fight_ over this thing, but Sam simply turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, the loud banging of a door closed with too much force echoing throughout the bunker's interior.

Dean drew up the coffee table and took a seat upon its edge, and tried not to think of the various symbolic meanings of doors that slammed closed.

* * *

It was an hour later when Cas actually blinked, the movement lethargic and not all there, but enough of a change for Dean to bolt upright, crouching beside the couch and trying to catch a gaze that wasn't currently focused on anything. The look was too blank, even for Cas, and his mind swung instantly to the last time he had seen that look; that time when Cas had almost killed him. He had a pretty good idea, now, of what specific recollection had been responsible for causing the former angel's fit earlier, and so he was extra cautious in trying to address its aftermath.

"Cas?" he ventured warily, well aware by now of the possibility of an unpredictable response.

Another slow blink, without a single sign that his friend had heard him, or even knew he was there.

"Cas." He tried again, louder this time, hand hovering just short of touching, because if reactions to voice were unpredictable then touch was downright volatile. "C'mon, man, give me a sign here." Watching the former angel roll over and curl in on himself had not been what he had in mind, and he ran a hand over his face before deciding to throw caution to the wind and laying the same hand on Cas' shoulder, his voice a sharp bark. "Cas!"

Nothing. Not even a flinch. And he wasn't freaking out, not yet, but he was treading damn near the borders of that lovely precipice.

His voice wavered as he tried again. "Castiel?"

He got a reaction this time, though it couldn't have been further from what he wanted as Castiel wrenched himself up and away in a movement too swift to be anything less than painful, shoving himself all the way to the opposite end of the couch where he simply sat, staring _past_ Dean with a petrified expression on his face. This was too much like what Sam had been like when he was hallucinating, and Dean suddenly realized why it was he'd garnered a reaction this time around.

"Dammit, Cas, I thought we were past all this waking memory shit." Anger wouldn't help, particularly seeing as he was pretty sure he knew where Cas was right now inside his own head, but the angel was supposed to be _better_ and this wasn't _fair_.

"Dean?"

He hadn't been expecting acknowledgement, or the way his name sounded more like a question than an actual response, and it threw him for a moment. He recovered swiftly, however, closing the space between them again but refraining from trying to touch the former angel. It limited his options, because physical contact had always been the most effective way of helping Cas distinguish reality from memory, but he could work with what he had. He didn't have any other choice but to do so.

"Here," he offered with a lightness he didn't feel. "Present and accounted for."

Cas frowned, still not looking _at_ him, and tried again. "_Dean_."

The former angel's eyes were flicking all over now, tracing movements and events Dean himself could not see, because they weren't really _there_.

"I'm here, Cas." 'Here' should really have meant something, considering he was standing right in Castiel's line of sight. "Look at me already."

Cas probably didn't mean for his response to sound as panicked as it did. "I can't _see_ you."

Well, fuck.

"Close your eyes." He had no idea what he was doing, but fumbling had worked before, and it had damn well better work now.

"How will that _help_?" The irritation and petulance in those words at least smothered a little of the panic. He could roll with that.

"Just do it, Cas, okay?"

It probably spoke volumes that Cas hesitated only minutely before obeying, driving the heels of his hands into his eye sockets for good measure, but Dean was too preoccupied to worry about deeper meanings right now.

He waited a few minutes, giving Cas' breathing time to slow, and his relief a little time to settle in before he went the next round. "You still seeing free television?"

"No."

There was no way this little episode was over and done with, because Dean's life had never been that easy, and neither, come to think of it, had Cas'. He had a weapon now, at least, though, and if it wasn't a blade in his hand capable of gutting already dead angels then he could make do.

"I'm going to try something," he told the Fallen angel. "Don't smite me, 'kay?"

He didn't give Cas time to explicate how smiting wasn't a power he possessed any longer before reasserting the hold his friend had shaken off a few moments earlier, and though Cas flinched this time at the sudden contact Dean still counted it as a win. He didn't even have to give voice to the next step, either, because Cas acted before he did, lowering his hands and opening his eyes again, tracing the path from Dean's hand on his shoulder up to the Hunter's face.

"Please tell me you're not seeing Naomi right now," he joked weakly, and it might have been funny if he wasn't dead serious.

"No…" Castiel replied hesitantly, but his gaze was still a little too hazy. "At least, I can see you."

"But…?" He knew there was 'but' coming, because 'buts' never didn't come.

"I can still see everything else as well." Cas' face crumpled slightly, and, yeah, that was fear he was seeing. "It is getting harder to tell them apart."

"Are we on a time limit here?" It wasn't something he wanted to know, but he needed to. "Cas, is there a point where this becomes unfixable?"

"I do not know." The former angel exhaled somewhat shakily, hands raised to cover his eyes again, and Dean's stomach lurched. "I have no frame of reference for this."

"Okay." He had no idea what he was doing. He had no idea how to fix this. All his bravado, all his stubborn confidence… it wasn't going to make any difference in the end. Not if he couldn't find the right answer in time. But failure was not and had _never_ been an option. He wasn't losing Cas. Not again. "Well, you can't exactly walk around blindfolded, so how about you lie down and catch forty-winks, yeah? Sam and I, we'll have this all figured out by the time you wake up."

Cas didn't fight him, but Dean couldn't help but wonder whether that was because he trusted Dean to find a solution or simply didn't have the will to argue right now.

* * *

The last time Cas had become a victim of his own mind Dean had sort of understood what was happening. He knew the reason Cas would sometimes go into fight or flight mode around him and Sam was because he was reacting to past threats. He suspected the reason Cas simply shut off sometimes was because he'd just hit one of those blank pages Naomi had so kindly installed in his brain. He understood that when Cas shoved himself in the corner and acted like he didn't even know Dean was there it was because he was reliving a memory he _knew_ was a memory but didn't know how to get out of it. The last time around he'd pretty much figured out the whole shebang. The triggers, the solutions, which words and touches would bring Castiel back around and which would just drive him further away. It had been hard, but he'd established a system, and it terrified the hell out of him that that system was no longer working.

There seemed to be neither rhyme nor reason to when the attacks hit. He'd tried to find a pattern. Tried to figure out exactly what it was that could leave him talking to the angel one moment and staring at something that looked a hell of a lot like a seizure the next, but there _wasn't one_ to find. Cas was suddenly a ticking time bomb, and it didn't matter that Sam had come up with a tentative explanation for the fact – something to do with an impossibly heavy mental load and Cas' sheer inability to cope –because what help was knowing the cause if he couldn't do anything to stop it from happening? Cas was fading right in front of his eyes, taking longer and longer to recover between spells, losing himself not in a single memory but many at once, and where once he'd cowered in a sign that he recognized what was happening around him _as_ memory now he interacted freely to the point where Dean was forced to realize the former angel could no longer tell the difference.

It wasn't fucking fair, and Dean's own sanity was hanging by an increasingly thin rope.

"Dean?"

He startled, raising his head off his folded arms and lifting his gaze to stare bleakly at his little brother. Sam hadn't brought up angels again since that first night, which was just as well, because Dean was desperate enough now he might have even considered that an option. The younger Winchester had that expression on his face now, though, that one where he was just daring to be hopeful but knew that caution was probably a good idea as well. Sam obviously had something, but whether that something would actually work was obviously still in question.

"It's forty-two, right?" he said, then snorted at Sam's blank look. "The answer to life, the universe, and everything in general?"

"I wouldn't know," Sam responded slowly, looking as though he was questioning Dean's sanity in the current moment. That was okay. Dean was questioning it too. "But, I think I might have something."

"Well, don't keep me hanging, will you?"

Taking a step forward, Sam set a familiar journal on the table in front of him, one finger pressed to the page beneath a familiar name. "I don't know if she'll be able to help," he said, already bracing for a bad outcome. "It's a long shot, but…"

Right now he would take any kind of shot over doing nothing. "Have you called her yet?"

"I did." Sam winced slightly. "She spent about half an hour lecturing me with a promise for more when we arrived, but she's agreed to help, if she can." His gaze drifted then to Cas, who was lying senseless on the couch for what had to be the umpteenth time in the past few days. "It's a four hour drive, though. Do you think he'll be okay?"

"We got any sedative left?"

Sam blanched slightly, but nodded. "Yeah, a little… Are we sure that's a good idea, though?"

"No, Sam, I'm not sure it's a good idea. Hell, I'm not even sure he's going to survive the damn trip. But if there's even the slightest chance this could work…"

"We have to try," Sam finished the sentence for him. "Okay. I'll get the kit."

"Yeah."

He was pretty sure Sam had already left the room by the time that acknowledgement left his lips. Breathing out a sigh he rose, feeling stiff and old, which wasn't fair either, because he was still far too young to be feeling _either _of those things. Crossing the short distance between the kitchen table and the couch he dropped down on the edge of the cushions, clasping his hands together and throwing a weak smile Cas' way.

"Hey, buddy, guess what? We're going to Lawrence." The huff of laughter that escaped his lips was desperation, pure and simple. "I can show you the old house. Who knows? If we're really lucky it might not even be haunted this time."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Whoo. Look at me, being all productive and stuff. I think this is the eighth - ninth, tenth? - time I've rewritten this chapter, so I've finally told my inner critic to stick a sock in it and just leave it be. That probably means this isn't adequately proofread or up to the usual standard, but at this point I really don't feel like writing another ten drafts.**

**Okay, done whining now.**

**Enjoy.**

**Cheerio,**

**Cheekyrox**

**Summary: There was one thing the three of them had in common, and that was that they never fought for themselves. For the planet, for strangers, for each other, yes, but never for themselves. It stood to reason, then, that the best way to drag Cas back from the precipice was to stand right there on the edge beside him. **

* * *

**Part 6: Despair Trailed Close Behind**

* * *

An angel's memory was infallible. There was no experience they did not recall. No word that slipped through loose nets of remembrance. They stored an age inside their heads and did not forget a single detail once committed. Castiel had taken that knowledge for granted once, the endless recollection stretching back to before the birth of humanity as much a part of who and what he was as his Grace and wings had ever been. Except his Grace and wings were gone now, leaving only the memories to torment him. A punishment, cruel and enduring, because even those were corrupted and tainted by the hand of another.

They were not all bad memories. They could not be, for he had been created before the Fall of Lucifer, when Heaven had still been what it was meant to be. When the angels, though Warriors of God, were also creatures of love and mercy, even if they did not feel such things on the same level that humans did. When they still had a Father to keep them from straying from their intended purpose.

Angels did not count youth the way humanity did, but Castiel had still been young when Lucifer first began to tread the road of disobedience. They called it disobedience, but such a word was too light, too little. Disobedience did not spring from such malicious intent, nor was it motivated by deep-rooted hatred and jealousy ill-becoming of a being of pure light. Lucifer did not disobey, he _betrayed_, and the one act was so much greater in its evil than the other.

The terrible event that was Lucifer's Fall may not have been so harmful had he outright chosen the path of opposition, but the Morning Star had instead bided his time, drawing as many others to his cause as he was able. The Devil had spoken with a honeyed tongue and a visage of majestic beauty, so that many had flocked to his side, entranced, only to be seduced by venom and darkness, turned into something less and more than they had been. Less of light, and more of darkness. Lucifer had needed an army, after all, and with none to call his own he had simply taken what he wished until Heaven stood divided and war became an inevitable outcome.

Castiel himself had not raised a hand against another angel during that conflict, and neither had others who stood beside or below him in rank. Even some of those above him had been ordered to stand down as Michael, their General and Protector, did his utmost to stop the corruption from spreading any further than it had. The task of felling those turned by Lucifer's influence instead fell at the feet of the remaining archangels and those who stood in their closest circle, and Castiel wondered now if that was when the dark stain of corruption had first found its way into the hearts of Heaven's purest.

Was it the grim task of having to put down their own kind that had caused angels like Zachariah to turn into what twisted creatures they had? It had almost certainly been the cause of so many of the upper echelons trying to follow in Gabriel's example and simply fleeing the conflict only to be hunted down for their abandonment of duty. Even for those who had not had to take part in the fighting, simply watching the dark reality of a civil war had been enough to stir doubts, and a little doubt was all it had taken for order to crumble. Not outwardly, but inwardly. The slow decay of the foundations that lay out of sight, but upon which everything else stood and fell in the end.

The war had been won, Lucifer's minions either destroyed or driven into hiding, and Lucifer himself eternally bound. The damage had already been done, however, and it was then, Castiel knew, though he could not quite mark the exact time of the transition in his mind, that many of the Host had ceased to care for humanity and, to an extent, each other. They had once dared to feel in their own way, but it was discouraged now, moreso by Michael than any other. For, if Lucifer had never loved, would he not also have never hated? Have never Fallen? Have never forced Michael to act against his every desire to cast his brother down? Beneath the weight of Michael's grief, Heaven changed, slowly but surely, and the darkness crowded in.

Those who had fallen had been cast out, the pure remained, and none remembered that the Fallen had once been pure, or that the pure could still Fall.

Castiel did not know all that had happened in the interim, Naomi had seen to that, and he wondered if he was worse or better off for that lack of recollection. Clearly he had disobeyed each and every time, or else Naomi would not have expressed such anger at the number of times she had been forced to rearrange his memories, and he suspected Dean would be pleased to know he was somewhat proud of that fact. He had seen enough of the twisted and corrupted thing his home had become to know that there were no orders issued by Heaven that he would have felt compelled to follow for very long, which, evidently, was exactly the reason Naomi had seen fit to force the issue. Unfortunately, it had served neither her nor Heaven well in the end, and it had led to what seemed to be the systematic self-destruction of his own mind.

He was somewhat aware of what was happening, more so than he probably should have been, given the impact the crumbling foundations of his angelic mental faculties were having on his fragilely human self. He knew he was worrying his friends. He recognized the expression on Dean's face in his rare moments of clarity as desperation, and felt the guilt associated with knowing he had once more been the one to put such a look there. As had become habit, though, there was very little he could do to actually rectify the situation. Clarity came and went faster than he could follow, and he was more often drifting in memories than he was walking in reality. It was not a state of existence in which he could persists for much longer, that he knew with unfailing certainty, and he supposed that same realization was likely the reason for Dean's distress.

It was probably also the reason he came to lying prone on the backseat of the Impala, rather than the couch both Winchesters had taken to depositing him on whenever reality slipped away. He lay still for a moment, considering this sudden shift of location, before deciding the Impala's roof was not in possession of a satisfactory amount of information to explain the change of locale and moving to push himself upright. He never made it that far, however, because no sooner was he moving upwards than he was falling, falling, _falling, but he wasn't falling, he was _flying_, wings tucked close to his back, plunging down through heat and darkness and suffering. His Grace cried out in protest at the corruption around him, but he ignored it, flying past sights and sounds faster than even his senses could register. In the back of his mind he bore witness to the battle taking place behind him, to where his brothers and sisters fought desperately to hold the attention of Hell's minions, with Michael, bright and brilliant and terrible, at their head. The tide of the battle was not his concern, however, for he had been given a task, and it was his alone to complete._

_The fires grew hotter the further he went, the shadows deeper, the souls around him more and more tormented. There was a weight of oppression dragging at him from all sides, and he felt his wings rip in protest at the strain being inflicted upon them. He ignored the tears, they would last, and focused all his attention instead on finding one suffering soul among millions. He was not at all surprised that his hunt led him near his Fallen brother's cage, and even as he sensed and latched onto the spark that was Dean Winchester he felt the presence of Lucifer. It came as a shift from unbearable heat to stifling cold, an oily touch to the air that settled like a layer of slick upon his wings and slowed his progress to a crawl._

_It was too late, however, he had already found the one he sought, and he darted past Alistair and his favored minions to seize the Righteous Man… but Dean cast the lighter to the floor and he was standing of a sudden in a circle of fire, shouting words across the confining flames without ever saying what he meant as Naomi tore into his mind with her accursed talons… that ripped through Samandriel so easily and his brother was gone because he'd been too weak and… Naomi was absent at long, long last and he was himself for just a second but then there was something _else_ and he was slipping away beneath a tide of black hunger because Purgatory did not just house souls… it was all gone and he'd destroyed it and he was _burning_ but that wasn't right because there was nothing left to burn…_

"Cas, you son of a bitch, don't you fucking dare!"

He gasped, hand groping blindly as his lungs screamed at him for air, fingers snaring in flannel and closing of their own volition. His breathing was irregular, sharp, swift pants pockmarked with the desperate, hopeless sounds that escaped his lips in the place of the words he tried to utter. Dean's face hovered above him, drifting in and out of focus, and the Hunter's soft voice was somehow the only thing that could pierce the sheer cacophony of sounds ringing in his ears. He thought they were screams, mostly, though whether Hell's or Heaven's he could not tell.

"Easy, easy," Dean was saying, the words almost a chant. "Just breathe, alright? In and out, piece of cake. You're okay, Cas, it's okay, just _breathe_, dammit."

He did his best to obey, falling silent as he concentrated on the rhythm with which his human shoulders rose and fell, but the sense of urgency driving him to speech did not abate, and when he had waited as long as he could endure he opened his eyes again and stared straight at the Hunter, increasingly perturbed.

"What are you doing here?" He barely recognized his own voice, devoid of power and otherworldliness, wrapped instead in the harsh, grating syllables of his humanity and what it had done to him.

Dean blinked, looking confused. "What are you talking about, Cas?"

"You're not… you weren't…" Frowning, he moved his hand to push against the Hunter's shoulder, not at all comforted by the fact it appeared solid beneath his touch. "You shouldn't be here. I _raised_ you. Why are you here?"

The Hunter's face twisted in agonized comprehension, and he reached out with both hands to seize Cas by the shoulders.

"_Fuck_, Cas," he hissed sharply, sounding physically pained. "Why would you even…? You're not in Hell, okay? You're _not_."

"Oh." Dean sounded certain, but then… "I thought I was burning."

Dean's scowl deepened, and the Hunter moved one hand to rest briefly on Castiel's brow. "Shit, you _are_ burning. Sam, pull over. Pull over _now_."

The noise and motion around him he had barely registered until now suddenly ceased, but he paid it no mind, preoccupied by the fact Dean was trying to move away, the Hunter already reaching for the car door. Instinctively, he tightened his grip on elder Winchester's shirt, not at all certain whether he was trying to protect Dean or himself by ensuring they stayed together. His head was spinning again, the inside of the car cavorting in a frankly alarming manner, and he didn't want Dean to leave with those fires lurking so close.

"I'm not going anywhere, Cas," Dean said those words like a promise, though Castiel knew they had too often been a lie, spoken by all three of them. "I just need to get something out of the boot. I'll be right back."

Words were only words, with no true power of assurance.

He didn't let go.

"I'll get it, Dean." Sam's voice was pitched low, as if he were trying to calm them both. "You stay with him."

There was a creak and clatter of movement as the younger brother departed from the car, echoed but a few moments later when he returned. Castiel had his eyes closed again, trying to organize his scattered thoughts, trying to remember what was important, trying to… Dean was tugging him upright, startling him back into a state of semi awareness as he tried to coax him into doing _something_.

"C'mon, buddy. I need you to swallow this."

He did not understand until the vile substance was already trickling down his throat, choking him, and he coughed and spluttered in protest. Dean ignored his body's form of argument, however, simply waiting until the fit had passed then lowering the former angel back down onto the back seat. Castiel could feel his mind drifting again, floating away from the Impala and its other occupants, but there was something he needed to do first.

"I'm sorry." His voice sounded worse now, hoarse and cracked and _weak_, always too weak.

"For what?" Dean asked, sounding as though he would rather not.

He opened his eyes, blinked until the fog dissipated, and met the Hunter's green gaze directly.

"For killing you."

* * *

Lawrence hadn't changed.

Sam wasn't even really sure why he had expected it to, save that the world had almost ended several times and all number of bad and terrible things had come and gone in the interim. This town was, after all, where it had all started. Where the bid to free Lucifer had begun in earnest. Maybe it was ridiculous to have expected that to leave a mark, but the gentle moonlight flooding the tranquil township as they drove past the customary 'Welcome' signs just seemed jarringly wrong. Where were the scars? The signs that evil had been here and left its mark? Was it only on people that such signs lasted, fading, but never truly healing, whilst the world around them moved on?

Errant thoughts, perhaps, but they seemed oddly fitting now. None of those who had survived the battle that had seen its origins in this little piece of paradise had done so unscathed, and even now the lingering aftereffects of the Apocalypse That Wasn't lingered. How much of the hardship they had endured since could be traced back to that day? How many of the terrible things that had happened _weren't_ related to the opening of the Cage and all that had followed? It wouldn't have been hard to map current events back to where it had all started going wrong, but doing so would have been fairly depressing, because even Sam had to admit that that road was rougher in a lot more places than it was smooth. It was said adversity made one stronger, but there were only so many times a person could be glued back together before the damage became too much.

He sincerely hoped that wasn't the case this time, not just for Cas' sake, but for Dean's as well. His brother had been absolutely silent since Cas' last dramatic foray into the conscious world, and though the former angel had woken again about a half hour out of Lawrence seemingly in possession of his faculties, Cas himself hadn't been any more verbose. He was worried about both of them. Worried that no matter what they did what had happened to Cas was going to prove to be too much for simple human hands to repair. Worried that this might get a lot worse and never get better. Worried about what Dean would do if it did. By this point both brothers were clutching at straws, but whilst Dean was doing it to try and save his best friend, Sam was doing it to try and save them both.

They didn't approach Missouri's house by way of the front door, both deciding discretion was the better part of valor and creeping in through the back instead. Sam somehow, and against his better judgment, found himself the first to arrive on the doorstep, Dean supporting a wavering and entirely compliant Cas behind him. It was hardly fair, considering he'd been the one to make the phone call and had already endured one verbal tirade, but he wasn't about to point that out now. Dean's mood was too brittle to appreciate even that thin attempt at humor, and standing out in the cool, night air really wasn't doing an ailing Cas any favors. Mustering his courage, he reached out to press the doorbell, ignoring Dean's snigger at the way he braced himself immediately afterwards. If he didn't have Cas to use as a shield, Sam was damn sure his brother would have been doing the exact same thing, so he could stow it.

The door swung open before he could voice such thoughts aloud, and from the relative safety of the bottom of the steps Dean offered the woman standing on the other side of the threshold a bright smile.

"Evening, Miss Mosely."

Sam watched his brother's smile vanish in a sharp yelp as Missouri came down the steps in two long strides and slapped him soundly on the back of the head, then attempted – and failed – to duck the mirror blow that chased away his own grin.

"Don't be strangers, I said," she scolded them both fiercely. "Don't be strangers, and you never even bothered to call? The only reason I knew you boys were still alive was 'cause I had my own sources. Worse than your father, the both of you!"

It was not often now that they encountered people who had known their father, and Sam could only describe the emotion swirling in the pit of his stomach as a bittersweet one. By the time he had moved past it to the point where he could speak around the lump in his throat Missouri's attention had drifted to the third member of their rag-tag party, who was now making a conscious effort to stand on his own, though Dean had yet to relinquish his hold on the former angel's elbow. Missouri, for her part, gentled both voice and manner as she offered her hand to their slightly dazed friend.

"You must be Castiel." Both brothers tensed, ready, as they always were now, for the worst possible reaction. "I hear you've been good to these boys."

Cas' eyes flickered briefly to Sam, then to Dean, in search of reassurance or guidance as to the acceptable behavior in such a situation Sam couldn't tell, before returning to the psychic's own steady gaze.

"I tried," was his quiet admission, before, hesitantly, he reached out and accepted Missouri's offered hand.

Sam, remembering what had happened when he last came to this place, watched the psychic's face intently the moment she had Castiel's hand within her own, and was not entirely surprised when her features were suddenly awash with reflected pain.

"Oh, _honey_." The words were a breathless exclamation of horror and sympathy and kindness wrapped all into one, and Missouri promptly ensnared their unsuspecting friend in a firm embrace. Cas instantly went ramrod stiff, and Sam saw Dean brace for the worst. "You're going to be okay. I promise." Missouri didn't give the worst a chance to happen, releasing Cas in a matter of heartbearts as she turned to the Winchesters, back to her usual whirlwind self. "Well, are you two going to stand on the doorstep gaping all night? Get on inside already!"

* * *

Dean lost Cas again about three steps inside the front door, although, this time, at least, there weren't any convulsions or crazed fever talk involved. The former angel just dropped, almost dragging Dean with him, and he suspected that had a hell of a lot more to do with sheer stress and exhaustion than anything else. Cas' mind and body had called a timeout, and he heartily agreed with the notion, almost wishing he could do the same. Reality wasn't that kind, however, and Dean, being both wholly conscious and comparatively well, was left with the task of transporting Castiel to a resting place more comfortable than the damn floor.

With Sam's help and following Missouri's directions he stowed the former angel safely away on the divan in the psychic's counseling room, taking the necessary time to make sure Cas was still actually breathing, and that his fever hadn't once again skyrocketed into the danger zone. The latter was another worrying affliction they could have done without, but, given how serious the situation had become, he supposed it had really only been a matter of time before Cas' body started to make objections of its own.

"Why didn't you bring him here when it first happened?"

Missouri's sharp question drew his attention away from the waning former angel, and he turned to scowl at the psychic woman now standing on the other side of the divan, one hand resting with a feather light touch on Castiel's shoulder. He hadn't been expecting an accusation, and, though the more rational part of his mind realized it _wasn't_ one, the exhausted, end of his rope part wanted nothing more than to take that statement as an excuse to shout and swear and curse the world the way he wanted to.

"We weren't sure what was wrong, at first," Sam, fortunately, found civil words to utter before Dean could launch his offense. "And then we thought maybe it would fix itself, with time. He did seem better, for a while."

Missouri looked torn between pity and disbelief as she stared the younger Winchester down. A fairly impressive feat given how much shorter she was than Sam.

"Something like this doesn't fix itself, Sam," she told him with an unerring amount of firmness. "It won't heal. Not on its own."

"Yeah, we figured that much out ourselves." With an effort, he kept his anger in check, but sarcasm had free rein. "Can _you_ fix it?"

"If there was something to fix, maybe." Missouri's eyes drifted to their unconscious friend, and Dean deliberately _didn't_ study her expression, because he knew he would not like what he saw reflected there. "There are wounds there. Deep and untended. Scars. Some his. Some not." Her gaze flitted briefly to Sam, a curious expression on her face, but it passed before any uncomfortable questions were asked. "But those will mend, given time and proper care. They're not what is causing this."

"Then what is?" Sam asked, again forestalling any of the words that were threatening to spill over the threshold Dean was struggling to keep in place. He wanted to pace. He wanted to _break_ something, but the thought of what Missouri might do to him even if he tried kept him in place. The other alternative was screaming, but that probably wouldn't help much, and it might wake the neighbors.

"The problem is what _isn't _there any more," Missouri elaborated with a sigh, moving away from Castiel to take a seat and gesturing for them both to do the same. Dean didn't move, and, after a glance his brother's way, Sam didn't either. Missouri eyed them both with obvious exasperation, but didn't comment. "There's a reason I can only pick up what thoughts and memories you are thinking of at the time, Sam. No mind is an open book, there are rules and safeguards and protections. Things that keep people sane. Things that stop," she gestured with one hand. "_This_."

"But Cas doesn't have those anymore," Dean concluded.

"From what I can sense, he hasn't had them for some time," Missouri said, and Dean stared. "There's been another touch on that boy's mind, Dean. I don't know how or why, but somebody rifled through his thoughts and memories like a raccoon in the garbage can, and they didn't care what they destroyed in the process."

Brushing aside the complete weirdness of anyone calling Cas a 'boy' Dean found himself piecing together what Missouri had told them and the knowledge they possessed that she didn't. Naomi was the only person he knew of to have been screwing with Castiel's head, and the first time she had done that had been after the Apocalypse, two, whole, _freaking _years ago. But the damage couldn't possibly be that old. Cas had definitely had his moments of crazy over that two year period, but he'd never been like this.

"Then," Sam said slowly, so that Dean knew he was still figuring it out in his head. "The only reason this didn't happen earlier is because he was an angel and his Grace protected him?"

Cas had already said as much to Dean himself, the Hunter recalled. This just put it into perspective. Perfect, crystal clear, clarifying perspective.

"I'm going to assume you know what you're talking about and say 'yes'." Missouri shrugged, though it was not a gesture of indifference. "And you'd better not be forgetting the fact you promised to explain how exactly the pair of you got yourselves one of those in the first place."

"It's a hell of a story," Dean answered her. "Somebody even wrote books. You could just read those."

"What he means," Sam interjected with a glare at his elder. "Is that now really isn't the time, but we'll be sure to explain _everything _later. Is there anything you can do for him, Missouri? Anything at all?"

"Your friend is lost," Missouri sighed. "And there isn't any coming back from where he's gone. Not alone."

"But you can help him, right?" Dean demanded helplessly. "Please. Cas is... Cas is family."

"I can't help him," Missouri said sadly, and Dean actually reeled. Sam was forced to reach out and steady his brother, though Dean was quick to shake off his hold. "He doesn't know or trust me. He wouldn't let me if I tried."

"But he knows me, _us_," Dean answered quickly, almost wildly. "Could I do it, if you showed me how? Could I help him?"

"Oh, honey..." Missouri sighed. "You're not a psychic, you're not at all trained. If I send you in there you'll just as likely become as lost as he is. If that happens, I can't guarantee that I can pull you out."

Missouri obviously wasn't as perceptive as she thought if she believed that was enough to stop him. Sam, on the other hand, was, and didn't hesitate to try and intervene in the latest of Dean's legendary do or die schemes.

"What if we both went?" he suggested. "Together."

"What? And both got yourselves lost?" Missouri gave each brother a hard look. "This is a stupid idea, boys."

"So?" Dean dared to ask.

"So you're your father's sons," the psychic snapped back. "And more fool me for ever listening to any of you." With a roll of her eyes heavenwards, Missouri then conceded, "Take a seat, boys. It's time for a crash course in mind walking."

* * *

The feather drifted down slowly, caught and tossed hither and thither by a nonexistent breeze. He watched it fall all the way, bloodied and ruined, to join the crimson stains already corrupting the pristine white of the floor. It was all a mirage, for he was not in his vessel and his true form did not bleed blood, but the falsity of his wounds' appearance did not make their actuality any less painful. Defiant still, he raised his head and dared to meet the wrath filled gaze of his superior.

"You are wrong."

Zachariah raised his hand and Castiel stiffened despite himself, but Michael made a stilling gesture, and his favored prodigy grudgingly stood down.

"So certain," the archangel spoke slowly and deliberately as he leant down to be on an eye level with the kneeling angel. "Yet, how can you be, when till now you have lived a lie?"

"You are wrong." He had never been so certain of anything in his entire existence. "This is wrong. It is not our world to do with as we please, it is theirs, and we are meant to protect them, not destroy them!"

"And who protects us?" Michael demanded softly, still gentle. "Who heals the wounds Lucifer left behind? Who heals those corrupted by his taint? This was supposed to end with his imprisonment, but it did not. Humans turn to demons and angels continue to Fall. You know the latter to be true, for you bore witness to Anna's flight, to Uriel's betrayal. Can you deny that, even imprisoned, our brother holds the power to cast a pall of evil across the world? Death is the only way to end this, and for that to happen Lucifer must walk free."

"No." He struggled to get the words out, Michael's will an unbearable weight on his mind. "This is _wrong_."

"Castiel." Michael reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I need you to obey. You are the only member of the Host the elder Winchester trusts. I cannot send another in your place. Your family needs you, Castiel, do not abandon them now."

"I shall not," he answered readily. "I will tell them the truth of what you plan instead. I will tell them how many have died because you wanted the Seals broken. I will..."

Michael reached out and took a hold of what was not physical, tugging and pulling and crushing, and Castiel found his voice had abandoned him beneath the weight of wild panic that landed upon his shoulders when he realized the archangel had just shut away his Grace through brute force. It had been sudden, and brutal, and he reeled, desperately trying to reach out to his brethren only to find himself isolated and alone. The pressure on his Grace continued to grow with each passing second, an excruciating pain that tore away reason and thought. Had he possessed a physical form he would have been writhing by now, as Michael crouched beside him to speak.

"I won't take it away," he said softly. "I won't cut you off. But I can make this permanent, Castiel. I can make you suffer, and it will never end. A fate worse than death. Are they worth so very much to you?"

"I won't... I can't..." He couldn't get the words out, his mind twisted by an agony such as he had never felt before, and the crushing pressure on his Grace did not ease as he struggled, it worsened. He fought nonetheless, because he knew he was the only one who would, and that, without him, the Winchesters would not see the end that was coming until it was too late.

"Yield, Castiel."

But Michael was an archangel, his power was absolute, and Castiel's resistance was little more than futile. There was never any doubt he would surrender, not when his world had long since turned to white, hot, neverending pain. The only real question was _when_ he would surrender. When his will would falter. When the Winchesters would lose their only chance of averting the Apocalypse. When he would fail them, and his Father, for he knew this was not right.

It was the human equivalent of days later before he submitted to the archangel's will.

He never fully forgave himself for his weakness.

* * *

The concept of one person hanging around in another's head was not an entirely foreign one to Dean. Cas had dropped in often enough to make demands and pass on information, or later just to check in on the Winchesters at random moments without having to abandon his hunt to do so. It was funny, in a way, that the idea of having the angel inside his head had never really fazed him. He had simply accepted it as another freaky occurrence in his life and moved on. It was, he soon learnt, very, _very_ different when you were the one doing the mind walking.

He was privy to things he should not have been privy to. Hidden emotions and thoughts that went along with memories he recognized, but which had never been uttered aloud. He'd never considered Cas overly verbose, so he was somewhat surprised to find that the former angel's head was a hell of a lot more cluttered than his abridged verbal conversations suggested. And that was without taking into account the scrambling Naomi had done at her leisure. He couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was doing something wrong, like reading his sister's diary, if he'd _had_ a sister, and it was a natural reaction to that crawling sense of guilt that had his mouth outrunning his mind.

"Well, this is weird."

It probably wasn't at all an appropriate reaction to finding yourself inside somebody else's head, but Dean had never really concerned himself with appropriate. Besides, it was an honest observation in its own way. He felt like he was in the middle of some sort of slideshow, moving and still images drifting past on all sides in a sort of obscuring fog, changing every time he blinked, sometimes even when he didn't. He could hear voices in the distant, overlaying one another like a large crowd all talking at once, and some of those voices probably matched up with the images he could see but he'd be damned if he could tell which.

"No wonder Cas is out of it," he remarked blandly. "This place is a _mess_."

Sam, standing beside him, simply nodded in response to his observation, his face tight and his expression anxious. Knowing Sam and his respect for the rules Dean so shamelessly ignored his brother probably found this totally necessary invasion of their friend's privacy even more off-putting than he did, but Dean wasn't about to let Sam walk distracted into something Missouri had told them could quite easily become life threatening. Nudging his brother with his elbow, he made sure he had fully captured Sam's attention before speaking again.

"I hope you got all of that. Honestly, I think I memorized about the first rule and the rest was just white noise."

"You're hopeless," Sam huffed, still looking decidedly uneasy, but at least a little more focused. "Though I guess the first rule was the most important."

"Right, no interacting with a memory unless you want to get stuck in it. Got it." The flashing sights in front of him were enough to induce nausea, and he narrowed his eyes, glaring at the cause of his friend's apparent madness. "Remind me again how we're supposed to find Cas if _he's_ interacting with all of these and we can't?"

"We have to try and reach him _between_," Sam said, waving his hands as if the gesture made the words make more sense.

"Between?" He knew he was scowling, and didn't particularly care. "Sam, he jumps back and forth faster than I can keep track of. Where is there any between?"

"I don't know." Sam shrugged a little helplessly. "But _you_ were the one who said we had to try. If you don't think it's going to work then maybe we should look at doing something else."

"Like what?" He shook his head, winning his argument with himself. Which he guessed meant he'd just lost an argument too. Really not an important concern right now. "No, this is our only chance, right here. Just… where do we start?"

Sam eyed the ebb and flow before them with as much wariness as Dean had a few moments before, then turned to his brother with a sort of helpless half-smile. "On three?"

"This is crazy," Dean muttered, at the same time as he inwardly acknowledged that, really, this was par for the course when it came to their lives. Seeing Sam's expectant expression he took a deep breath and prepared himself for another 'day in the life of the Winchesters and Co'. "Alright then, on three."

* * *

He had not been expecting Raphael to leave him alive, not when the archangel had not hesitated to smite him the first time he had dared stand in his way, but perhaps that was exactly the reason Raphael stayed his hand. This would have been the second time he died at the archangel's hand, and Raphael's argument that it was Lucifer who had facilitated his return from death no longer stood. 'Alive', of course, was a relative term, and he could scarcely haul himself onto all fours, let alone stand. His wings felt like a leaden weight on his back, the damage to his Grace rendering them all but useless, and he knew he should not be flying anywhere for a few hours at least. It was precious time, however, and he could not rightly afford to waste it. Not with the time limit Raphael had imposed.

He needed to warn Dean. That thought was forefront in his mind, even as he mentally apologized to Sam for not fulfilling his promise to keep Dean away from danger. Instead he would be dragging the Hunter right back into the fray, but the alternative was far worse, and he would not let Dean live in ignorance of the dire plans unfolding in Heaven.

It took more effort than he was used to exerting, but he made it to his feet, staggering drunkenly as the weight of his wings threatened to pull him back down. He was determined, however, and he ignored the pain as he spread his protesting limbs, his mind already drifting, searching for Dean, his body poised for flight. He was not expecting to be hauled back from the edge, yanked with enough brutal force he crashed against the wall of the pristine room in which he found himself. Taken off guard, he sunk to the floor, only to be hauled upright by two of his brethren and faced, not by Raphael, as he had expected, but an angel he did not know.

"Castiel." She smiled at him, wearing a vessel, as the majority of the Host seemed to of late. The Apocalypse had taken too much manpower for many to remain without a means of traveling unseen on the world below, and few had surrendered their forms upon returning to their home. "Welcome home."

"Who are you?" He knew false welcome when he heard one, and every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to get out as swiftly as possible. The two angels holding him were not lax in their duty, however, and he stood no chance of shaking free in his current state.

"That is not important," she answered him calmly, rising from behind her desk to pace around it, leaning on the smooth, metallic surface as she studied him with an acute gaze. "The only thing that matters right now is your mission."

He tensed, wary and watching. "What mission?"

"Raphael," she said, the one word standing as an explanation on its own, though she elaborated regardless. "The last archangel in Heaven. The last threat to the humans you care so much for."

"I am not so certain that is true." And he wasn't anymore. Not staring into the cool, gray eyes of his sister's vessel, and reading what he could of her cold intentions.

"Perhaps it isn't," she agreed smoothly. "But that is not your concern, either, soldier. You have strayed, Castiel, further then ever before, but you're home now, and we can finally set about healing all the damage that has been done."

"What damage?" Wariness was quickly turning to out and out alarm. "What do you want from me?"

"What I have _always_ wanted from you," she retorted, and there was a hint of frustration to her words, barely present, but recognizable nonetheless. "Obedience, the corner stone on which we all stand. Loyalty, which you seem so ready to throw away at the slightest hint of a threat to humanity's existence. And _purity_, Castiel, which you lose every time you set foot on that cursed planet." Pausing, his sister visibly reeled in her anger, replacing it with cool calm once more. "Michael made a mistake choosing you for the mission of raising the Righteous Man, and for a time I thought the harm caused by his foolishness would be irreparable. He has learnt his lesson now, no doubt, and perhaps some good can be salvaged from the disaster of your bond with the Winchesters."

She rose from the desk and took a step forward, invading what Dean would call personal space, and Castiel tensed, both at her veiled threat against the Winchesters, and her far from veiled hostility directed at himself.

"Raphael means to make Heaven his own," she said, voice low and still infused with that eerie calm. "I am not of a mind to let him, and you, Castiel, are going to repair what damage you have wrought by helping me stop him."

"I intend to stop Raphael…" he began, hoping, still, to talk his way out of whatever this might be.

She whirled on him, anger and accusation in her eyes. "You intend to sow chaos in his place! Free will, Castiel, and all the harm it will bring with it. I do not intend to allow you free rein any more than I shall allow him. No, you will help me stop Raphael, but you will do it on my terms, _without_ the help of the humans you so cherish. They have done enough harm to Heaven already, and the restoration of order is long overdue. I can't challenge Raphael directly, my place must be here, so you shall be my weapon upon the battlefield, as you were always meant to be."

"No." He shook his head, braced for whatever persuasion she might invoke, remembering all too well the form Micheal had chosen. "I will not serve you any more than I would serve Raphael. You are both wrong."

"And so are you," she answered with a smile. "If you think you have a choice."

* * *

"That freaking _bitch_…" Dean started forward, set to take on Naomi and both of her goons and to hell with his odds of actually being able to pull that off, but Sam hauled him back before he could even take a step.

"Dean, we _can't_ interfere," his brother reminded him pointedly, ignoring the way Dean fought him, blocking the first that would otherwise have given his astral self a pretty black eye. "It's too risky."

"This is where it all started, Sam," Dean argued, stopping his efforts to free himself in the hope it would make Sam lower his guard, even as he watched in growing horror as Castiel was hauled off his feet and strapped down to a table, effectively immobilized. "This is what we missed. This is where we let him down."

"And it's _already happened_," Sam emphasized, tugging on his arm a second time. "This is a _memory_, Dean. You can't change it. Not now."

Dean glared at his brother, hating that what he was saying was true. "I can stop him from reliving the damn thing!"

"Missouri said to wait." Sam dragged him back another figurative step. "We'll get an opportunity to stop this, Dean, just… not now."

It wasn't good enough. Not for Dean. Not when this was far from the first horrific recollection they had borne witness to. Whatever Castiel's mind was up to, it seemed bent on bouncing the angel from one bad memory to another, and Dean had seen more than enough to last him a lifetime. They'd followed Missouri's instructions to the letter all to no avail, because Cas didn't spend enough time between the memories to allow them to even approach him, and Dean was right on the edge of that 'do or die' moment right now.

"We've _been_ waiting, Sam," he answered his brother's argument, shaking himself free at the same time. "This isn't working. It's time for plan B."

"No, Dean, what are you _doing_…!" Sam panicked tone faded away into nothing as Dean stepped through the veil right into a memory that was not his own. Whether or not it was his seemed pretty immaterial at the moment, however, and the picture was more than real enough to justify him turning on Naomi in righteous fury that only grew when he recognized what it was the angel was holding in her hands.

"You touch him with that thing and I'm going to plug you with it, you freaking alien."

Naomi couldn't hear him, of course, considering she was just a reconstruct of what had already happened, but Cas did, and the memory around them shimmered and stuttered in and out, Naomi and her lackeys hesitating in apparent confusion while Cas, who had somehow gotten himself free of the weird-as alien probing table, stared at Dean in utter bewilderment.

Dean opened his mouth, hoping something of worth might actually escape his lips, but before he even had the opportunity to come up with something good the recollection into which he had unflinchingly thrust himself suddenly came to life. Naomi was staring straight at him, no longer wielding a probe but a sword instead, and there was murder in her eyes as she advanced, both her goons right on her heels.

"Whoa! Okay." He took a hurried step back, keeping the desk between himself and his would be murderess. Could you die in somebody else's memory? Missouri hadn't exactly been clear on that one, but Dean figured he was better off safe than sorry. "Can't we just talk about this for a sec?"

They did not answer, the trio splitting apart as they circled the desk from either side, effectively cutting off all escape routes.

"I'm going to do the world a long overdue favor," Naomi told him boldly. "And end your existence once and for all."

She raised her hand, blade at the ready, and Dean braced himself, wondering if this mental stabbing was going to hurt as much as the real thing did. There was another player in the room, though, one they had all forgotten, and who now made his move.

"Dean!" Cas made a dive for him across the desk, seizing his arm as the distinctive sound of wings filled the air for a brief second and suddenly they were standing in a frozen rendition of the barn where he had first met the angel. Dean staggered a moment, off balance, but recovered a second later, taking a moment to examine his new surroundings.

"Huh." Staring at the image of himself on display for a moment, Dean turned back to Castiel with a smug grin playing on his lips. "So you can control what goes in here, after all."

"Dean, _what are you doing here_?" The angel – former angel, though he wasn't sure that counted in here – was glaring at him in one of those rare but no less amusing, or _terrifying_, fits of anger. He took the anger as a good sign and widened his grin, spreading his hands expansively as he answered.

"Rescuing you," he retorted lightly. "What else?"

"You cannot be here," Castiel insisted, as the image around them stuttered again, the barn disappearing for a moment to be replaced by the horrific sight of what Dean could only assume was a battlefield in Heaven, then shifting with a grinding of gears he could almost _hear_ to Bobby's library. This was hard for Cas, he knew, keeping them grounded in a 'safe' memory, but he was looking right at the proof the former angel _could_ do it, given the right motivation.

"Why not?" Keeping one eye on their surroundings in case Naomi and her buddies decided to emerge from the woodwork again, Dean countered what had been a statement, not an argument. "You are."

"It's _my_ mind," Castiel said sharply, and, okay, that was a legitimate point.

"Yeah, well…" He took his eye off the peripheral when the flickering became enough to be seriously distracting. "You seemed like you needed a hand to clean house." Cas' attention was wavering right alongside the decreased stability of the current memory, and Dean knew he was inches away from losing the angel to another horror. With that in mind he took a step forward, placing himself squarely in Castiel's line of sight and ensuring he had his friend's full attention. "I'm stuck here now, Cas, you understand? I _can't_ get out until we fix this, and if we can't, well, I guess you'll take me down with you."

He could _feel_ the former angel's distress at the thought as well as see it, and even as he felt kind of bad for causing such a thing he knew it was exactly what he needed to do in order to make any progress at all.

Cas, sounding wounded and somewhat betrayed, demanded, "Why would you do this, Dean? I could kill you."

"No, I could _die_. You can't take responsibility for my stupidity. Besides, I figure there's a pretty good chance that won't happen. You're going to beat this, Cas. I'm almost a hundred percent sure on that."

"How can you be?" Cas questioned his surety. "I have done nothing but lose ground thus far."

"Yeah, maybe." He paused, putting his thoughts into words. "But if there's anything you, me, and Sammy have in common, Cas, it's that we don't fight for ourselves. For the planet? Maybe. For strangers? Sure. For each other? Hell, yes. But never for ourselves. So I figured the best way to drag you back from the precipice was to stand right out here on the edge with you."

The former angel was staring at him now as though he had just uttered a truth that was entirely incomprehensible. It was that look that went a step further than his usual bewilderment, and evidently carried with it a sort of fond wonder. He didn't know what, exactly, Cas had heard to incite _wonder_, of all things, but he figured he'd push his point whilst he knew he had his friend's attention.

"You won't fall, Cas. Not if it means taking me with you. So, whaddya say, partner?" He held out his hand, grinning when Cas cast it a wary glance as though expecting it to do something more than a hand should. "You gonna help me kick your own head's ass, or what?"

"This is coercion, Dean," Castiel informed him flatly, and this time Dean couldn't get a sense of what the angel was thinking via those errant thoughts and emotions. Castiel had tamped them down to a volume beneath his hearing, either deliberately or through the randomness of his own head at present, leaving Dean to flounder uncertainly.

"I guess it is." He shrugged, entirely unrepentant. "But if it works…"

The former angel's expression softened then as he reached to take Dean's hand, his next words letting the Hunter know he'd made the right call.

"Thank you."

"Yeah, sure." He waved off the gratitude. "Thank me _after_ we get out. You can buy me a pie, or something."

"Or something," Cas agreed amicably.

It wasn't a victory. They were both still stuck inside the former angel's head. The memory currently protecting them from its less friendly neighbors was still trembling like a drunkard's hand. Cas was still teetering on the edge. Dean might still never return to his own head, leaving Sam to deal with his comatose body. In truth, there was still all manner of things that could go horribly, dreadfully wrong, but they had a fighting chance now, and Dean was a Winchester.

He had never really needed anything more than that.


End file.
